Rõivas: Reform Party wasn’t the problem
Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas denied that the Reform Party played a part in the failure of the electoral college to elect the next president on Saturday.
“The Reform Party and I believe that the majority of the government coalition voted, and that was definitely not the problem,” Roivas told BNS on Saturday evening. He added that in his eyes, the result showed the weakness of the people who did not vote, not the weakness of a presidential candidate or the government.
According to Rõivas, it would have been in the interest of Estonia if the president had been elected on Saturday.
Rõivas said that he did not believe that Reform Party’s presidential candidate Siim Kallas, who said that he would not run again but would continue in politics, would compete for the position of prime minister.
“On the contrary, we are on the same team. He is still a member of our party, and is always welcome to help us,” Rõivas said.
The country’s elected representatives failed a second time to elect a president. The electoral college convened on Saturday turned out incapable of choosing the next head of state, when in the second voting round 57 blank as well as three invalid ballot sheets made a decision between candidates Siim Kallas and Allar Jõks impossible.
An extraordinary presidential election will take place in the Riigikogu in two weeks. President Toomas Hendrik Ilves proposed Oct. 3 as the new election date.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn
Source: BNS