TALLINN - Five opposition parties in the Tallinn City Council issued a statement on March 28 accusing Center Party municipal officials of insinuating bribery scenarios and secretly recording conversations with opposition members.
The parties claimed that several members of the Center Party had expressed a desire to meet with the opposition and have asked very large sums of cash for defecting from the Center Party. Then, at the actual meeting, the Center Party members taped the conversations.
"We have suspicions that those who asked to be bribed were sent to meet with the opposition and secretly tape the meetings on direct orders from the Center Party's leaders," opposition parties said in their statement.
"It is highly unfortunate that residents of Tallinn are being represented in the city council by people who are so unethical and can be influenced so easily," the statement continued.
The opposition drew parallels with the previous high-profile taping scandal in Estonia more than 10 years ago that led to the resignation of Center Party leader Edgar Savisaar from the post of interior minister after it was revealed that he had secretly taped his conversations with rival politicians.
"This is illegal surveillance activity. It seems that the Center Party has learned nothing from the previous secret taping in 1995. The party in power today is still far from fair and transparent governance of the city," opposition deputies from the Reform Party, Pro Patria Union, Res Publica, People's Union and Social Democratic Party said.
The Center Party's propaganda newspaper Kesknadal has promoted its next edition due out on March 29 by declaring that the paper possesses a recording of a clandestine meeting.
In the words of Kesknadal's editor, the recording reveals how parties left in the opposition after democratic elections are attempting to buy power in the capital again.
The Center's propaganda newspaper alleges the incentive for such practice is real estate on Harju Street in Tallinn's Old Town. Those not satisfied with the compromise reached with the city government still hope to build luxury apartments in the Old Town.
The Centrist city government, which has been in power since local elections last fall, has decided against developing the south front of Harju Street, destroyed in Soviet bombings in 1944, and pay cash to the land-plot owners in order to turn the area into a park.
The five opposition parties submitted a motion of no-confidence against Mayor Juri Ratas in connection with the real-estate purchase. The parties said it was impermissible for the city to buy the land at double the market price.
They claim the mayor lied to the public when he said there had been purchase talks with the private owners.
According to an official expert opinion dated Jan. 20, the market price of the properties in Harju Street is 74.8 million kroons (4.7 million euros). However on the same day, the city government offered the private owners to sell the properties to the city for 150 million kroons, the opposition claimed.
"Mayor Juri Ratas, who has fervently defended the Harju Street deal, is directly responsible for such irresponsible squandering of the taxpayers' money," the parties said in a joint statement issued March 23.
