Laisk received 18 votes from the 23 deputies who attended the session on Monday.

Laisk received more votes than any of the other 131 candidates to run in the October 17 local elections in Saue municipality, population a little under 24,000,

He polled 1,012 votes, a healthy amount in an Estonian municipal election, with the Koostöö - Meie vald local electoral alliance.j

Saue will be governed by a tripartite coalition, with Reform (five seats) and Isamaa (four seats) joining Koostöö - Meie vald (11 seats) for a majority of 20 in the 27-seat council.

Eesti 200 (four seats) and the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), three seats, are in opposition in Saue.

The coalition agreement itself was signed on November 3, while the municipal government consists of three auxiliary municipality mayors and five government members, along with Laisk as mayor.

Kalle Pungas (who actually ran in neighboring Saku on October 17), Andres Kaarmann (Ismaa) and Riho Johanson (Reform) will continue as auxiliary elders.

Each of these are allotted an area of responsibility, which is construction, planning, housing, traffic and related (Pungas), development, services and security (Johanson) and education, culture and social affairs (Kaarmann).

Peedo Kessel (Koostöö - Meie vald), Eva Puusta (not listed as having run in October's election), Kristel Kuusk (Koostöö - Meie vald), Arpo Põld (Reform) and Mihhail Jallajas (Isamaa) make up the rest of the municipal government.

Laisk, 51, first became mayor after the 2009 local election, and continued in the role after the 2013, 2017 and now, 2021, local elections.

As reported by ERR News, former prosecutor general Lavly Perling (Isamaa) is now deputy council chair in Saue.

There are two types of municipality in Estonia, the 15 city municipalities which, as the name implies, cover the larger population centers – though towns with as few as 10,000 inhabitants also qualify in some cases – while the remainder consist of rural municipalities. There are 64 of these and, again, the name is potentially misleading in that quite densely populated commuter districts like Saue, Rae or Viimsi are also in this category.

2017 municipal reforms slashed the number of municipalities from 213, to the current 79, and the number of councilors was nearly halved, from 2.026 to 1,019.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!