New coalition coming to Tallinn

TALLINN - The Tallinn City Council will cast a vote of no-confidence in the mayor and the council's chairman on Nov. 2.

Vote initiators doubt Tallinn Mayor Juri Mois and City Council Chairman Rein Voog will survive the no-confidence vote.

A total of 33 members of the Tallinn City Council from the Center, the Coalition and the Estonian Democratic parties along with People's Trust and People's Choice electoral blocs signed the cooperation protocol on Oct. 24 and also agreed to carry out the no-confidence vote.

Four days later, on Sat. Oct. 28, the new coalition agreement was signed. The Estonian Democratic party, however, decided to postpone its participation on Friday evening and stated it may join the agreement later.

Despite that fact, Savisaar, nicknamed "the Rhinoceros" by Estonian media for his political purposefulness, is sure that the no-confidence vote has enough partisans in the City Council. Nevertheless, he declined to reveal the names of those council members who promised to support the no-confidence vote this Thursday .

The Center party and People's Choice hold 21 and seven mandates of the City Council respectively. For a power shift, the opposition needs at least 33 votes of all 64 council members.

Peeter Kreizberg, the Center party's deputy chairman, did not exclude that Savisaar may become the new mayor.

To attract partisans from the Russian parties, the Center party offered them four out of six future deputy mayor posts. The People's Choice electoral faction would get three of them.

Mois and Voog are members of the Pro Patria Union and the Reform party correspondingly. As Mois stated in an interview to the Postimees daily on Oct. 30, he does not mind being a simple member adviser of the city government and supports the creation of a new, stronger coalition.

According to council spokeswoman Anneli Berends, the no-confidence vote will not affect neither the legislative nor the administrative work of the City Council and government.

It is not the first no-confidence vote to come out of the council. This spring Deputy Mayor Ivar Verkus survived the no-confidence vote caused by his offer to turn Tatari Street in downtown Tallinn into a red light district.

However, such a vote has never been presented simultaneously to both city mayor and council chairman.

Berends said that if the vote succeeds on Nov. 2, right after the resignation of the mayor and council chairman the council will elect new ones, and they will start work the next day.

Toivo Tootsen, chairman of the council's Center faction and member of the Center party, said the opposition has been protesting against the actual coalition almost since the last elections in fall 1999.

"The reason for the no-confidence vote was that the present administrating of the city does not meet the interests of the city, as the opposition put it," said Tootsen.

He said Tallinn has several thousand families that do not have apartments, and construction of municipal apartment buildings has been postponed. Less money is paid as social subsidies and the bureaucratic procedure to get them has become more complicated.

"Besides, some prices have increased, for example, public transport tickets," added Tootsen.

Tootsen hopes Mois and Voog won't survive the no-confidence vote. "If the vote doesn't succeed, we will remain in the opposition, but we're sure it'll pass. Mois' rule caused some discontent even among his coalition partners," said Tootsen.