Center Party and EKRE prefer electoral college over Riigikogu vote
The Center Party prefers to elect the president in the electoral college, as this was closer to the party’s conviction that the head of state should be elected by the people, Oudekki Loone, secretary general of the Center Party, said on Tuesday.
“It's important to us ideologically, we prefer the president to be elected by the people. The electortal college is definitely closer to the people than 101 individuals in the Riigikogu,” Loone told BNS after the second parliamentary vote of the presidential election on Tuesday.
“The president is the guarantor of the people’s rights, hence it would be right for the president to get his mandate directly from those he has to represent in the first place,” Loone said.
She added that she considered the chances of the party’s candidate, Mailis Reps, in the electoral college to be good, since Reps had personally visited virtually all of the municipalities across Estonia as part of her presidential campaign.
Chairman of the parliamentary group of the opposition Estonian Conservative People's Party (EKRE), Martin Helme, said also that the party was interested in taking the vote to the electoral college.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS