Toivo Tootsen, a long-time member of the Tallinn City Council
Rumors have started spreading about how soon all political parties in the Tallinn council will unite, push the Center Party out of power and then start to rule the city themselves. Well, it has already been tried, but what came of it…
The first time they tried to make a group so that all other political parties are against the Center Party, in 1999. After the spring Riigikogu elections, the country was ruled by a three-party coalition – the Fatherland Alliance, the Reform Party and the Moderates. Mart Laar became the prime minister, whose request to the coalition partners was that the three-party coalition must stay together and take power in Tallinn too, what with the fact that the Center Party had won the elections. However, only 28 votes were obtained in the Tallinn council after the three, so the extra had to be found elsewhere, especially from the Russian election union People’s Trust. Now the government coalition had 32 votes – but this was still only half of the 64 votes of the council, a couple of additional votes would have been needed. They were expected to be obtained from another so-called Russian list – People’s Choice. Leonid Tsingisser’s vote from People’s Choice was decisive, Rein Voog was elected as the chairman of the council.
The mayor’s election was more successful in Mõis – he only got the necessary votes in the second election round. In order to secure its meager position, Mõis signed a new governance agreement in Tallinn on November 10, 2000, which had seven parties. These were the Patriotic Association, the Reform Party, the Moderates, the Russian Baltic Party in Estonia, the Estonian Democratic Party, the United People’s Party of Estonia and the Russian Party in Estonia. Keeping every bit of that in the coalition required some lucrative position or other perk. Only for the vote of Annika Laasi, the only council member of the Estonian Democratic Party, the position of elder of the Kristiine district had to be given, and in addition, the position of councilor was given to her relative; other benefits and rewards were also discussed.
In the council, however, there were no-confidence votes against the mayor – a new one every two weeks. The goal of the central faction was to keep Mõis under unpleasant public attention. As the summer approached, members of the Reform Party also started to join the vote of no confidence, who already initiated a vote of no confidence against the mayor in May. It was a clear sign, and the pragmatic Mõis himself resigned from the post of mayor. Jüri Mõis announced that the main reason for his resignation from the post of mayor of Tallinn is brutal pressure from the Patriotic Association.
Even before the end of 2001, a new coalition was born in Tallinn. On December 7, the cooperation agreement between the Center faction and the Reform Party faction was signed in Tallinn. On December 13, Maret Maripuu was elected the chairman of the council, Edgar Savisaar the mayor.
The reign of the Seven Dwarves faded into history.
Of course, the desire of several politicians to overthrow the Center Party in Tallinn did not go down in history. The next attempt was made in 2004.
In the 2002 elections in Tallinn, the list of the Center Party won 32 seats in the council, thus an absolute majority for the first time. However, Savisaar decided to continue with the Reform Party, because we were also in power in the country together. Edgar was the mayor and deputy chairman of the Maripuu council. But when in 2003, after the Riigikogu elections, we were left in the opposition in the country, a large group of prominent center party members left both the Riigikogu faction and the council faction. Then the Center Party started to lose power in Tallinn.
By that time, I had already been on the Tallinn council for 11 years, but I had never seen such a deal before. Yes, MPs have been enticed or flattered in the past as well, but so far it has not been possible to buy MPs with state money (salary) in the literal sense of the word. Now it was. Interior Minister Leivo, for example, gave Faktulin a lucrative advisor position in the ministry – that’s where the saying “to make Faktulin” came into circulation.
They also sold what they didn’t really own. For example, Vitali Faktulin and Jüri Trumm came to the council in Lasnamäe constituency with the good support of Edgar Savisaare’s votes – Trumm got only 221 votes, Faktulin 189. 14,547 people voted for Savisaare! These two defectors got the several hundred votes needed to get into the council from the votes given to Savisaari and the Center Party. Irina Didenko, who switched to Res Publica, received 257 votes in Central City, she got into the council with the support of Siiri Oviir (received 2064) and other center party members. Doesn’t it sound familiar when you look at the current defectors?!
As a result of buying off our deputies, the Center Party faction no longer had an absolute majority in the council. With the help of the transactions described above, it was so far that the so-called October coup took place in 2004. Of course, the motion of no confidence was not initiated by our coalition partner, the Reform Party, but by the opposition Res Publica.
Res Publica had 17 votes, Reform Party 11 and People’s Union 3 votes. However, only 31 votes in total. At least 32 would have been needed. When the new alliance included Kreiztberg, who had become a socialist from the Center Party, the votes were together. So they wanted to overthrow the Center Party with the votes of former Center Party members – I remind you that the People’s League’s three votes in the council were also people who moved there from the Center Party.
So everything was ready for the censure of Savisaari to pass. There was also no fear of costs: Matti Martinson, the reformist director of Rahumäe Elementary School, was on vacation in Madagascar, and according to journalists, former deputy mayor Anders Tsahkna went to look for Martinson and bring him back on time. All possible precautions were taken. Tallinn mayoral candidate Tõnis Palts booked nine rooms in the Olümpia hotel for party colleagues for one night before Edgar Savisaar’s vote of no confidence in the council, wrote Eesti Ekspress at the time. Palts also ordered dinner for party members. He wanted to make sure that “votes do not scatter”, as they said at the time. According to Palts, he paid about 20,000 kroons out of his own pocket for both the rooms and the food. At least 32 votes were needed in Tallinn’s 63-member council to pass a vote of no confidence in Mayor Edgar Savisaare.
On Thursday. On October 14, 2004, the council expressed no confidence in Edgar Savisaare. Tõnis Palts became the mayor, Maret Maripuu continued as the chairman of the council. Of course, it was a mess with the release of district elders. The resignation of the city government did not oblige them to resign. We had to offer a candy, that is, a hefty severance pay, to make room for the parents of our district. Predictably: it was the elders of the districts who soon became the gravediggers of the mayor’s office in Paltsi. It was the mayors from the Reform Party who opposed the mayor. They refused to comply with Paltsi’s written order to terminate their beneficial contracts with Unicom. This must have been very difficult for the mayor to digest. Palts accused the Reform Party of scheming and scheming. At the end of February, Palts already publicly threatened: if the Reform Party does not make concessions, it will join hands with the Center Party.
And then came the bombshell: on the afternoon of March 14, Res Publica announced its decision to end the coalition with the Reform Party in Tallinn and propose negotiations to the Center Party. On the afternoon of March 15, the coalition agreement was signed.
Tõnis Palts continued as mayor, Edgar Savisaar became the chairman of the council. Toomas Vitsut, Jüri Ratas and Kaia Jäppinen from the Center Party became deputy mayors. They had also been deputy mayors when Savisaar was mayor – half a year ago, before the so-called “August putsch”.
The Center Party won the next election with an absolute majority and from then on was in sole power in Tallinn for many years.
This is how the Center Party’s lobbying in Tallinn has ended.
