Savisaar: political funding watchdog should be disbanded
Center Party Chairman Edgar Savisaar said that the Political Party Funding Oversight Committee (ERJK), in its current format, should be closed as it is biased.
“The ERJK has disguised itself as a neutral organization, which performs unbiased monitoring. But in reality, it is a partisan and tilted commission controlled by the people who have been eternally hostile towards the Center Party - such as Kaarel Tarand and the largely unknown 'businessman' Ardo Ojasalu who has a very shady past and a questionable CV,” Savisaar wrote on his blog.
He said that it does not come as a surprise that the committee only investigates his party, adding that the committee is continuing its disregard for laws and common sense during the pre-election period.
“In its current format, the ERJK does not fill its aims, and it should be disbanded after the elections,” Savisaar said, adding that the task should be handed to someone else.
Ojusalu, who heads the committee, said every party they have criticized has drawn similar conclusions, adding that they have made procedural mistakes in investigations.
The committee has recently criticized Tallinn City Government for spending tax-payer money on pre-election ad campaigns. In mid-November, it also asked the police to investigate a number of individual candidates at the European Parliament elections, an investigation which resulted in small fines for a few candidates, including Indrek Tarand, brother of Kaarel.
The committee consists of seven members, one proposed by each of the parties in Parliament, one by the National Audit Committee, one by the Election Committee and one by the Chancellor of Justice.
Editor: J.M. Laats