Voters in Estonia are going to the polls Sunday for a parliamentary election.

Prime Minister Juri Ratas and his center-left Center Party are the front-runners, but they are expected to get some stiff competition from the far-right EKRE party, which has promised generous social spending.

In 2007, Estonia became one of the first nations to be hit by a modern type of enemy assault that has since been dubbed cyberwarfare. The attack came from Russia.

Since the cyberattack, Estonia, a former Soviet republic, has evolved into what many consider the most technologically advanced country in the world.

Key to that effort is e-Estonia, a unique project that links government officials to all citizens through a maze of platforms based on the “X-Road,” a government platform also used by major private companies.

Through the X-Road, citizens can participate in such activities as health care, banking, taxpaying, policing and education through a broadband or fiber optic network connecting the whole country. Legislators can digitally enact laws through a program called e-cabinet, while citizens use i-voting to elect and communicate with politicians. And there is free Wi-Fi virtually everywhere.

Throughout most of its history, the Baltic nation of 1.3 million people has been dominated and exploited by larger neighbors. But now, analysts say, the e-Estonia project has helped put the nation’s past behind it.
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