Mikser Makes U-Turn on Center Party Cooperation in Tallinn
The head of the Social Democrats, Sven Mikser, said he is willing to form a coalition with the Center Party to rule Tallinn after the upcoming elections, despite his party's candidate for mayor, Andres Anvelt, saying the opposite last week.
“The corresponding negotiations [after the elections] must be based on the political programs of the parties, not on personal sympathies or disdain,” Mikser said in a press release today.
Anvelt, along with IRL and the Reform Party's candidates for mayor, said they would form a coalition to govern Tallinn if they received more than half of the votes combined.
The Social Democrats and the Center Party formed a coalition to rule Tallinn after the previous local elections in 2009, despite the latter gaining a majority on its own. The partnership lasted a little over a year before the Social Democrats left over a scandal in which Edgar Savisaar was accused of asking for political funding from Russia.
Mikser said that any decision by the Reform Party not to support free public transport could pose a problem in potential coalition negotiations, adding that his own party had first raised the idea in 2005.
Reform Party Chairman Andrus Ansip said in an Eesti Päevaleht interview today that he would not keep public transport free if he were mayor. The party's candidate for the position, Valdo Randpere, said he would hold a referendum on the question, while IRL's candidate, Eerik-Niiles Kross, has said that the project is not free, but comes at the expense of other services.