Stalnukhin, Raik and the wrong bees

Remember the inspiration of the cartoon Winnie the Pooh, who was stung by a bee when he was trying to take honey from a hive by flying up to it in a balloon?

“Piglet, I thought and thought, I understood everything! It turns out that these are the wrong bees, completely wrong! And they’re probably making the wrong honey. I’m going downstairs!

“And how?” – asked Piglet.

“I haven’t thought about that yet…” answered Winnie the Pooh.

Something like this, in 22, Estonian politicians were stung by the words of Mikhail Stalnukhin, who called members of the government fascists after the demolition of Soviet monuments. After which he was expelled from his party and from the official political life of the country.

Stalnukhin, however, publicly expressed the opinion of his own voters, and much more censoriously than voters expressed it in kitchen conversations. Likewise, Ivo Peterson, accused of treason, appealed to his voters and said what they wanted to hear.

Wrong bees exist – parliamentary parties decided this for themselves before they were stung by Stalnukhin.

That said, of course, there is no such thing as wrong honey, which is why the government coalition increased the honey selection rate by 2 percentage points for all bees equally.

But the question of how to separate irregular bees and how to specifically limit their rights is extremely important for Estonia. It was discussed whether to punish only the citizens of the aggressor hive or the sulphur-bearers too? Enter a subscription to renounce the neighboring queen bee? Or is it cynical to admit that bees are divided not by passport, but by origin, in order to more effectively transform the wrong bees into the right ones?

What happened? It’s just that some of the bees decided that their opinion was the truth beyond doubt, and declared the majority of Narva voters to be wrong bees. And it is not even so important whether 40,000 Narvians or only 20,000 Estonian citizens living in the city will have the right to vote in local elections: the majority will still be buzzing in their kitchens with their incorrect narrative.

And it will be possible to win elections in this torn hive only if you please the wrong bees, whom you have already seriously disappointed.

Therefore, the most surprising and even reckless thing in Katri Rajk’s decision is not the choice of a partner at all, but the fact that she has now decided to strive for power, and not sit in the opposition and criticize.

It is obvious that Mikhail Stalnukhin will be a dangerous rival for her in the municipal elections. And in order to defeat him, having him now in the chair of the chairman of the city assembly, in less than a year as mayor, Katri Raik will have to do something outstanding for voters.

It looks like her priority will be the cost of heating. But next fall, before the elections, the residents of Narva will already receive steep bills, since a new boiler house cannot be built quickly. And the triumph of Katri Rajk here can only be facilitated by the miraculous resurrection of the Baltic power plant, which is still unlikely, like any miracle. But something else bad could happen to the people of Narva within a year.

The highly experienced Mikhail Stalnukhin, for his part, could well have “let Katri Raik steer” so that she would lose her supporters during the year of her mayorship.

And then next fall the wrong bees will vote wrong again. This is if you look at the buzzing beehive from the side, hanging on a balloon and pretending to be a cloud. From inside the hive it is more or less obvious that all bees are different, but all bees are correct.