Janek Pahka, who chairs the opposition Restart electoral alliance, told ERR's Russian-language news portal on Thursday: "The main reason for the motion of no confidence is Eduard Odinets' disregard for the council's functioning and the limits the rights arising from that cause the opposition."

"Among other factors, the reason is also that the council chair used city funds for his own political advertising. And in general, we are not satisfied with his attitude towards the organization of the council's work," Pahka went on.

In the assessment of the Political Party Financing Surveillance Committee (ERJK), Kaselo and Odinets "might have" utilized municipal funds for their own political campaigning.

The motion of no confidence also noted as well the mayor's allegedly disrespectful attitude towards senior citizens, and complaints over alleged activities of deputy mayor for culture and education, Denis Šalkauskas.

Pahka was not willing to give his prediction of how likely the motion of no confidence passing at the council would be.

For his part Odinets who is also a Social Democratic Party (SDE) Riigikogu MP, told ERR's Russian-language portal that he remains "completely calm" about the initiation of the no-confidence motion against him, adding: "It is the opposition's task to attract attention."

"One of the tools available to the opposition is to attempt to express no confidence against this or that authority. Let them amass signatures, submit them, then we'll review them and vote on it," Odinets said.

The current SDE-Center Kohtla-Järve coalition, with 13 seats at the 25-seat council, remains "very good," he said, adding he had no reason to doubt that all SDE and Center deputies will vote against it.

Regional daily Põhjarannik reported last weekend that the ERJK has started to investigate the situation regarding Kaselo and Odinets and the potential miseuse of municipal funds after the pair just before Christmas last year issued a video greeting on the city government's official Facebook page.

The video was produced using Kohtla-Järve city funds, while the two also published a longer version of the same video on their own personal social media accounts.

Odinets subsequently told ERR radio station Raadio 4 that this was a regular New Year's video greeting recorded at the end of December, with no political tinge to it. The video cost €150 in municipal funds to put together.

--

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