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Estonian Center Party reelects Savisaar as leader

BC, Tallinn, 30.11.2015.Print version
The opposition Estonian Center Party at a congress in Tallinn on Sunday reelected its longtime leader Edgar Savisaar as chairman of the party, informs LETA/BNS.

Savisaar won the election with 541 votes against 486 votes given for rival candidate Kadri Simson.

 

Altogether 1,051 participants were registered in Sunday's congress. The number of ballots issued was 1,034 and of valid ballots cast 1,027. Seven ballots were invalid.

 

The congress of the opposition Center Party also elected the party's secretary general Priit Toobal as one of the members of the party's governing board despite a guilty sentence handed to him by a court pursuant to criminal procedure having recently become final.

 

The other members of the Center Party's new board besides Toobal are Mailis Reps, Juri Ratas, Aadu Must, Enn Eesmaa, Kalev Kallo, Siret Kotka, Mihhail Kolvart, Jaanus Karilaid, Mihhail Korb, Olga Ivanova, Yana Toom and Jaak Aab. 

 

Ratas was elected to the board with 571 votes, Reps with 458, Must with 392, Eesmaa with 388, Kallo with 361, Kotka with 333, Kolvart with 320, Aas with 313, Karilaid with 299, Korb with 290, Toobal with 286, Ivanova with 281, Toom with 268 and Aab with 242 votes.

 

The criminal chamber of the Supreme Court on Nov. 20 upheld guilty sentences for Toobal and another Centrist politician, Lauri Laasi, for inciting a third person to unauthorized surveillance but acquitted them of violating the confidentiality of messages. The top court also found Toobal and the Center Party as a legal person guilty of document forgery.

 

A congress of the Estonian Center Party endorsed amendments to the party's statues which, among other things, abolish an automatic ban for people convicted pursuant to criminal procedure to be members of the party.

 

Kadri Simson, deputy chairman of the Center and rival candidate for incumbent Edgar Savisaar for the post of chairman of the party, said the statutes were changed not in order to express lack of confidence in the law enforcement bodies as was said by Edgar Savisaar, but to bring them into conformity with valid laws.

 

Simson said that under the amended statutes, persons convicted pursuant to criminal procedure will be expelled from the party by a decision of the board. Since the party is unable to keep track of all court records to make sure that none of its 14,700 members get a sentence, automatic expulsion did not work anyway, she added.

 

The amendment also changes a provision of the statutes barring a person who has quit the party once to become its member again and enables the person to return to the party's ranks by a decision of the extended board. Besides the amendments set out that in addition to capable Estonian citizens of at least 18 years of age also citizens of the EU can be members of the Center Party.  

 

Leaving the party, which previously had to be sought by means of a written application, can now be done by means of a person deleting his or her membership of the party using an ID card.

 

The amended statutes no longer offer the possibility to suspend one's membership of the party.






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