Voters in Estonia Put Brakes on Free-Market Growth : Baltics: The former Soviet republic is booming. But legislative elections indicate disaffection over rapid pace of change.

Even in this Baltic boom state that is the undisputed leader of the post-Communist pack, voters Sunday revolted against the young reformers who brought them prosperity in favor of repackaged socialists who have vowed to rein in “cowboy capitalism.”

While the apparent outcome of parliamentary elections here reflects a go-slower mood prevalent throughout Eastern Europe, the abandonment of shock therapy in one of the few arenas where it has been successful seemed to transcend the regionwide impatience and approach ingratitude.

In the little more than three years since it won independence from the Soviet Union, Estonia has escaped Communist-era stagnation and become one of the fastest-growing economies in Europe.

Only Poland and Hungary have surpassed it in per capita foreign investment, and Western economists predict that 1995 will see even more impressive economic expansion than the 5% posted last year.

Unemployment--the post-independence bane of most other states that bolted the East Bloc--is less than 2% in Estonia and virtually zero in bustling Tallinn.

Business is thriving, inflation is under control and the Estonian kroon is one of the region’s most stable currencies.

Yet the ruling coalition of youthful capitalists from the National Coalition Party and the Estonian National Independence Party drew a paltry 7% with nearly two-thirds of the expected vote counted.

Outpacing the radical reformers in the race for 101 parliamentary seats were the leftist Estonian Coalition Party and Rural Union, led by survivors of the Soviet era, with nearly 33%. The Reform Party, the Centrists and the Right-Wingers--all espousing a gentler transition, despite the implications contained in their names--also polled considerably ahead of the incumbents.

Why, when Estonia has achieved such swift results in creating a market economy--in contrast with its ex-Communist colleagues--were voters so eager to change political horses in the middle of the transitional stream?

Estonians voted as they did because they no longer compare themselves with their former socialist brethren but instead with the real economic powers in Europe, said Endel Lippmaa, head of the front-running Estonian Coalition Party.

“We have always been the best in the Soviet Union. So what? This is no compliment,” said the polyglot chemistry professor with a penchant for dramatic gestures.

In denouncing the crime and corruption that have accompanied the economic advances, Lippmaa drew a loaded pistol in the middle of an interview and professed to be ready to shoot if he felt threatened.

Despite the achievements of former Prime Minister Mart Laar and his thirtysomething ministers, Estonians were turned off by the highhandedness of the young leaders and what they saw as the unwelcome emergence of a have-and-have-not society.

Resentment of the nouveaux riches and their ostentation has been the leitmotif of political campaigns in each of the East European countries where radical reformers have been dumped after a single term in office.

Poles voted in a repackaged socialist leadership in September, 1993, followed by Hungarians last May and Bulgarians in December.

“People’s memories are amazingly short,” lamented Mari-Ann Kelam, a government spokeswoman and activist within the National Independence Party, now apparently a lame duck.

“We have to remind them constantly of the improvements. We remind them that our boys don’t have to go to Chechnya (where Russian troops are battling Muslim secessionists). But it’s hard to get through. . . . We haven’t been able to overcome the perception that the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer.”

Her husband, party leader and legislator Tunne Kelam, likened voters’ disaffection with the post-independence leadership to the biblical mutiny against Moses after he led the Israelites out of the desert.

“It’s a typical situation now for many countries,” said Kelam, attributing the widespread disaffection in Estonia to unrealistic expectations of a post-independence “promised land.”

Psychiatrist Anti Liiv advanced the same theory: that Estonians were expecting too much, too soon and suffer a socialist-era hangover in believing that all members of society should benefit equally from the economic boom.

Estonians confused capitalism with the socialist democracy that had been built up in Scandinavia over a century markedly more stable and peaceful than the tumult in the Baltic states over the same years, Liiv said.

Like other analysts, he said he doubts that a change in government will drastically alter the country’s performance, because even the left-leaning parties that are apparently headed for office support continued market reforms, albeit at a gentler pace.