Vallo Reimaa, who aims to become council chair in the town of 10,000, said Wednesday that: "There is a very good working atmosphere," during a break in coalition negotiations involving electoral alliance Ühiselt Jõhvi Eest, which Reimaa belongs to, Reform and the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE).

The Center Party wants to leverage its five seats won in the Ida-Viru County town of Jõhvi at last Sunday's local elections, in order to remain in office, despite the fact that the incumbent coalition is one seat short of a majority. Were Center to be switched out and replaced by a local electoral alliance, the ensuing coalition would have a two-seat majority, however.

However, the Center Party wants to be part of a tri-partite alliance as well, just without the electoral alliance, and retaining the current Center/Reform/EKRE coalition.

Former rural municipality mayor and council chair Aleksei Naumkin, who polled the most votes for any Center candidate in Jõhvi at Sunday's election, said that he would do everything in his power to keep the status quo. "Even if a new 'triad' can be set up, without us, it wouldn't last long."

The Ühiselt Jõhvi Eest electoral alliance alone has seven seats, while the Center/Reform/EKRE threesome has 10 combined, just short of a majority on the 21-seat council.

This means a Ühiselt Jõhvi Eest/Reform/EKRE coalition would have a majority, with 12 in total (Reform has three seats, EKRE two).

Several notables lost their seats after Sunday's elections, including Martin Repinski (Center), a former government minister, and Max Kaur (Center).

Electoral alliances are unique to the local elections and provide an alternative to the mainstream parties, focusing as they do on locale-specific issues. While fewer alliances ran this year than in the past, when counted together, they polled more than all the major parties nationwide, bar Center.

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