Raimond Kaljulaid does not rule out any potential SDE-EKRE cooperation in Tallinn

Social Democratic Party (SDE) MP and former leader of the party's Tallinn branch Raimond Kaljulaid has not ruled out a coalition in the capital which would include both his party and the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE).
Not all leading figures are as equivocal about the prospect of such a lineup, which would be a rainbow coalition and then some, and would be designed primarily to unseat the ruling Center Party as a lesser-of-two-evils outcome.
The Reform Party plans to submit a no-confidence motion against Mayor of Tallinn Mihhail Kõlvart (Center) this Thursday, while, despite various viewpoints, a potential five-party coalition which would essentially leave Center the sole opposition has been talked about before as a possible outcome.
Were a vote of no-confidence to pass, ie. were SDE deputies to vote against the mayor of the coalition in which they take part and EKRE, Isamaa, Reform and Eesti 200 deputies to join them, it would unseat Mayor Kõlvart and the current city government.

Center has been in office in Tallinn for 20 years, until late 2021, when it entered office with SDE, as the sole party in government in the capital.
Reform's Tallinn leader Pärtel-Peeter Pere confirmed the party will be submitting the no-confidence motion this Thursday.
"The likelihood is greater than before that we might succeed in removing Mihhail Kõlvart," he told ERR.
"We are amassing signatures from all deputies on the city council, but specifically, it is a joint effort by the opposition. We are also looking hopefully towards the Social Democrats," he went on.
Pere said creating an alternative power coalition in Tallinn without EKRE is also viable, though he wouldn't exclude their participation either.
Like SDE and Eesti 200, Reform is at the opposite end of the political spectrum from EKRE, though there are instances in smaller municipalities in recent years where the two parties have been in office together.
As for potentially being in office with EKRE, Raimond Kaljulaid of SDE told ERR: "Unfortunately, at the Tallinn City Council, there are deputies who believe that the five or six EKRE deputies are considerably worse than a party that has been convicted multiple times (ie. Center – ed.), and so should not be accommodated under any circumstances."
"This is a viewpoint that, in my opinion, does not reflect that of a mature adult, but that's the conviction some people hold nonetheless," Kaljulaid added.
Kaljulaid is a former Center member and quit the party in spring 2019, ostensibly over the inclusion of EKRE in coalition at the national level with Center and Isamaa, under Jüri Ratas (who is now in Isamaa) as prime minister.
EKRE chair Martin Helme did not seem to be effusive over the prospects of a quintipartite Tallinn city government however.
This might result in a completely dysfunctional arrangement, he said.
"Assessing the possibility of a large coalition arraigning against the Center Party in Tallinn, involving five parties, as a political practitioner, it essentially means that we will have a generally dysfunctional city government in Tallinn until the next local elections," Helme said.
"I cannot see how we could support the crazy and anti-humanist green policy which the current [Center-SDE] coalition is implementing, and which will only get worse, at warp speed, if people from the Reform Party and Eeesti 200 join in," he added.
At the same time, his party seems to be holding the cards in that forming a new coalition in Tallinn without EKRE is practically impossible, he said. "This means we have to decide whether we want to support the current Russophile and corrupt Center Party, or the green terrorists implementing radical liberal policies. Neither option is appeals much," the EKRE leader went on.
Also, assuming a coalition change would result in Jevgeni Ossinovski (SDE) becoming the Mayor of Tallinn, Helme said that that would simply be to replace one non-Estonian mayor with another.
In any case, EKRE is ready to immediately initiate a vote of no confidence against Mayor Mihhail Kõlvart too, the party's Tallinn city council chair, Mart Kallas, told ERR. "There is complete stagnation [in Tallinn], and even the construction of the new tram line is a topic from the last century."
"If we want to reduce noise in Tallinn, a new tram line won't help with that, nor will it improve the smoothness of traffic in Tallinn," Kallas went on.
In theory, Kaljulaid noted that forming a ruling coalition that would leave both the Center Party and EKRE in opposition could be done, just that it would require some of the current Center Party deputies to come over in support of this alignment.
"It is clear that, generally speaking, that these individuals' approach so far has been not just to come along for no reason or out of principle, but rather when something is agreed upon with them," he said, noting with some irony that "in any case, it's a dirty situation where even to rid Tallinn's leadership of corrupt individuals who have been convicted multiple times, would require negotiations with some of those very same individuals representing that group."
Mart Kallas said that forming an alternative coalition in Tallinn, even for just a couple of months, would be a significant achievement nonetheless. "We would be able to dismantle that food chain a bit," he said.
The ideological differences between the parties might not pose such a major obstacle at local government level, he added, though said that no one from SDE has discussed a coalition change with him.
Kallas found the prospect of EKRE at any point ending up in opposition in Tallinn along with the Center Party to be unlikely, though said he considers the formation of a coalition incorporating, EKRE, the Reform Party, and Isamaa to be quite complicated as well.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte