Anvelt Steps Down From Party Post After Disappointing Election Results
The Social Democrat candidate for the mayor of Tallinn at the recent local elections, Andres Anvelt, said he is stepping down from his post as the head of the party's Tallinn branch.
The MP said the below-expected election results in Tallinn, where the party managed to increase its share of votes by 0.09 percent, were due to a lack of energy and coverage of their campaign.
“Certainly, some or our fickle messages that stumbled on traps set by the right-wing parties, and by the Center Party, played a role,” Anvelt said.
A total of 1,614 people voted for Anvelt, far fewer than his opponents gathered - Valdo Randpere of the Reform Party collected 2,343, IRL's Eerik-Niiles Kross 6,897 and the current mayor, Edgar Savisaar, 39,979 votes.
Anvelt was not the highest vote-magnet for his own party either, with ex-Center Party MP Rainer Vakra attracting 4,237 votes. Vakra is not even a member of the party, but did run as an official Social Democrat candidate.
Jevgeni Ossinovski, the party's biggest success story at the elections, today criticized Anvelt's campaign for agreeing to cooperate with the Cabinet parties, a move which Ossinovski said scared away Russian-speaking voters.