Estonian National Independence Party
에스토니아 민족독립당
A party founded on 20 August 1988 in the Estonian SSR by nationalist and anti-communist dissidents, the first non-communist party established in the Soviet Union. Aiming to restore the Republic of Estonia on the principle of legal continuity, it represented the radical wing of the independence movement, and in 1995 it merged with another party to form the Pro Patria Union.
In depth
The initiative came from Vello Väärtnõu, the leader of a local Buddhist group. On 30 January 1988 he held a press conference in Moscow for Western media announcing a proposal, signed by fourteen people, to found the party, and he was soon expelled from the Soviet Union. The party held its founding congress in August 1988 in the church at Pilistvere in central Estonia with 104 founding members, and Lagle Parek was among those elected to its board; she chaired the party from 1988 to 1992.
Unlike the Popular Front, which cooperated with pro-reform communists, the party used hardline anti-communist rhetoric and treated Estonia as an occupied and annexed country. On 24 February 1989 it launched, together with other groups, the citizens' committees movement, which led to the elections to the Congress of Estonia in February 1990, in which the party won a majority.
After independence was restored in 1991, the party won 10 seats (8.8 per cent) in the first Riigikogu election of 1992 and joined the centre-right coalition government of 1992–1995, with Parek serving as interior minister under Mart Laar. On 2 December 1995 it merged with the National Coalition Party "Pro Patria" to form the national-conservative Pro Patria Union (Isamaaliit).