Regional daily: New Kambja Municipality mayor elected amid controversy
Illari Lään (Reform) has been elected new mayor of Kambja Rural Municipality in Tartu County, following a somewhat acrimonious dissolution of the previous municipal administration, regional daily Tartu Postimees reports.
The new mayor was not elected without controversy, however, Tartu Postimees reports (link in Estonian), with one former deputy chair from the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), now in opposition, saying that municipal and national laws had been violated.
In the event, Lään won with 14 votes over Tarmo Kleimann (Ettevőtlik Kambja electoral list) and will head up a new coalition of Reform, Isamaa and electoral alliance Hoiame Head (such electoral alliances are peculiar to local politics and governance in Estonia and provide an alternative to the national parties – ed.).
Former mayor Argo Annuk (Isamaa) resigned, after less than a year in office, on August 23, while the former coalition of EKRE, Hoiame Head and Ettevőtlik Kambja collapsed a day later - Tarmo Kleimann had previously claimed that Hoiame Head had violated the good practice of the coalition in which his groping was also a partner, while Argo Annuk said the same, specifically with reference to former municipal council chair Aivar Aleksejev (Hoiame Head) , who he also said interfered with the mayor's work unfairly.
Lään is a long-term Kambja resident who has worked in leading positions in educational institutions as well as with small businesses working in the field of communication, Tartu Postimees reports, and stated that implementing development and investments in the municipality would be his watchword, as well as improving communications between municipal government, the council chamber, including the opposition, and local residents.
Kambja Rural Municipality lies just to the southwest of Tartu City, whose municipality it borders. It's population was a little under 2,600 as of 2017.
The original Postimees piece (in Estonian) is here.
Tartu Postimees is part of the news group that publishes the national daily of the same name, as well as several regional variants.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
Source: Tartu Postimees