The city of Tallinn could be governed without the Center Party and EKRE, but only if Jüri Ratas left the Center Party, said Raimond Kaljulaid, member of the Tallinn city council and Riigikogu social democrat.
“To be clear. Without Kiige and Hanimägi, the Center Party has only 34 deputies in the Tallinn city council. If Ratas also leaves, it will be 33. EKRE has 6. 33+6=39, so it is possible to leave. both the Center Party and the opposition EKRE. It is not necessary for either of them to govern a city.”
There are a total of 79 seats in the Tallinn City Council, so at least 40 mandates are needed to get a majority of votes in favor.
Kaljulaid told the ERR that he was personally in favor of excluding the Center Party, which has been in power in Tallinn for over 20 years, from the governing alliance, but this does not represent the position of the entire party. For example, the influential Social Democrat Jevgeni Ossinovski, as well as Deputy Mayor Madle Lippus, expressed the opinion that the current power alliance could continue.
According to Kaljulaid, after the departure of Tanel Kiige and Andre Hanimäe from the Center Party, the SDE governing council no longer met, which is why he could not say how many like-minded people there are in the party.
The chairman of the SDE fraction of the Tallinn City Council, Jevgeni Ossinovski, told ERR on Tuesday that the current coalition in the capital is working and that the socialists also want to continue with the Central Party.
“There are people in our ranks who would prefer a different union of power in Tallinn too. But politics is a rational field of activity and the categories of like or dislike are not the basis for our decision,” he said.
2024-01-10 15:00:00
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