List of Expat Candidates in Tallinn Elections Updated
Official candidates lists published this week show that one Western expat purportedly running for Tallinn City Council in next month's elections is out of the running, while a Dutch politician is registered as an independent candidate.
British citizen John Slade, who had told ERR News earlier this month that he would be running on the Center Party's ticket, did not appear on the candidate list.
"He was not registered [as a candidate] because he has no address registered in the Population Registry [as is legally required for candidates]," Heiki Soome, a representative of the local elections commission, told ERR News in an e-mail.
When contacted by ERR News for comment by e-mail, Slade responded, but did not address the issue.
Meanwhile, Joeri Wiersma, a Dutch citizen and founder of the European Whistleblowers Party, is officially a candidate in the City Center district.
Wiersma, the 37-year-old son of the former world champion checkers champion Harm Wiersma, has also announced that he is considering running in the 2014 European parliamentary elections as a representative of Estonia.
Another expat candidate, Tallinn-based British journalist Abdul Turay, was also confirmed as a candidate for the City Center district. He will be running for a council seat as part of the Social Democratic Party.
Estonian elections law allows all EU citizens the right to run in local elections so long as they fulfill all the other requirements for voting, such as being 18 and being registered as residents of the municipality or district in question.