ANDRUS ANSIP, Estonia's prime minister, is a happy man. Whatever the result of the coalition negotiations in the next few weeks, his strong showing in Sunday's parliamentary election means he is certain to keep the prime minister's post that he has held since 2005. Along with the eternal Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg (who beats him by a decade), Lawrence Gonzi of Malta (2004), José Sócrates of Portugal (2005), and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of Spain (also 2005), that makes him one of the longest-serving heads of government in Europe. Poland's Donald Tusk is a runner-up, a few months behind. Silvio Berlusconi of Italy has been around longer too, but not in continuous office.

Mr Ansip's electoral victory is remarkable given his government's record: it has pushed through an austerity programme (around 9 % of GDP) that in most countries would have had voters rioting in the streets, not queuing to re-elect their government. Estonia's economy shrank by a seventh in 2009 and unemployment rocketed to nearly a fifth of the workforce. Salaries shrank by up to a quarter in some workplaces.

But now a recovery is strongly underway, driven by sharply rising exports, chiefly to Finland and Sweden. Growth in the last quarter of 2010 was over 6%, though unemployment is still stubbornly high at nearly 14%. In January, Estonia joined the euro. It is one of a handful of countries in the euro zone (apart from Luxembourg) that actually meets the single currency's debt and deficit rules.

Mr Ansip's free-market Reform party campaigned on a familiar programme of more tax cuts and economic growth. He believes that Estonia will become one of the five richest countries in Europe. That may take some time, but voters seem willing to trust him. Reform gained two seats, giving it 33 mandates in the 101-member parliament.

His coalition partner in the previous government, the conservative IRL, did well too, gaining four seats to reach a total of 23. IRL is the result of a merger between the Isamaaliit (which literally translates as Fatherland Union, though it prefers, oddly, to be known in English by the Latin Pro Patria) and the Res Publica party (which really does have a Latin name).

The party's roots are partly in the dissident movement, but it is increasingly business-friendly too. That would make a good match for Reform in theory. But its leader, the historian and former prime minister Mart Laar, does not get on easily with Mr Ansip (a former Soviet Communist Party instructor). So Mr Ansip may turn to the Social Democrats instead. They were the biggest election winners, jumping from 10 to 19 seats. He can have a narrow majority with them, or a big one with IRL. It is a nice choice to have. (Two small parties, the Greens and an agrarian grouping, fell out of parliament altogether).

The new government is unlikely to bring many surprises. Mr Ansip is a manager, not a visionary. The big question is what happens to the opposition Centre Party, backed mainly by the country's large Russian electorate. Its vote dropped slightly, meaning a loss of three seats to only 26 in the new parliament. The party's leader, Edgar Savisaar, was at the centre of a row about clandestine party funding, involving the Russian railways minister and a donation to a Russian Orthodox Church being built in a Tallinn suburb (he is the mayor of the capital city). Estonia's internal security service regarded the payments as close to treason—a view echoed by other political leaders who hoped to see Mr Savisaar crash and burn, or at least be toppled by party colleagues wanting to save their election chances. Mr Savisaar denied all wrongdoing. The election seems to show that his core voters seem him as the victim of a stitch-up, not a villain.

But Mr Savisaar, a fixture on the landscape since the Soviet era, is no longer at the height of his powers either physically or politically. The Social Democrats would love to woo his voters, who are currently in a political ghetto cut off from power at a national level. This election result gives the Social Democrats, under their 37 year-old leader Sven Mikser (a name to watch) a credible chance to create Estonia's first mainstream centre-left political party, untainted by any suspicions about its ethnic or geopolitical loyalty. If and when that happens, Estonia's politics will not just be stable, but outright boring.

PS An editing error meant that I left out Mr Zapatero and Mr Socrates in the long-serving prime ministers in the initial version. Sorry. I have also added Mr Gonzi of Malta and Mr Berlusconi to the pantheon.