Silver Kuusik, who announced his candidacy for EKRE chair in mid-May, is not an independent political figure; he's a figurehead backed by those who want to precipitate a coup, Helme said on Tre Raadio.

"Chiefly behind Kuusik are Jaak Valge and Henn Põlluaas, well-known and respected within our party, which is too bad," he said. "Their main agenda is to turn EKRE into a mainstream party so that we'll be liked by our ideological opponents. And I don't agree with that agenda."

The incumbent chair added that disagrees even more with the tactics being used to try to stage the coup.

"In particular, these tactics involve sending libelous and false emails within the party, for example to the [party] board, and then leaking them to the press so that I and the party then have to explain that things aren't really like that," Helme described. "All these stories about how we have huge scandals and issues in our finance – absolutely false."

He stressed that for him, such actions are completely unacceptable.

"I have no problem with people running against me and offering an alternative platform," he explained. "But to take leaks to the press and cause the party a lot of trouble in the media, blemishing the party's lead candidate in order to gain some sort of advantage at the party congress is undermining the party's election result. That is absolutely unacceptable practice."

Helme claimed that earlier in the week, he met with Silver Kuusik and Jaak Valge, who essentially gave him an ultimatum.

"They said, 'Martin, are you interested in avoiding a rift in the party?'" he recalled. "I said of course I was, what are we even talking about. [They said] 'Here's the deal – that Silver Kuusik may not run for chair, but in that case it needs to be agreed that he'll become deputy chair.' I'd point out that these are people who talk about increasing democracy within the party."

Secondly, they wanted Mart Helme to resign as deputy chair of the party, to be replaced by Kuusik. Valge and Kuusik likewise wanted that, going forward, all decisions would be made by the party board, from staff all the way through political decisions.

According to Helme, the two also said that the party's public spokespeople need to change. They believe that Moonika Helme and Kert Kingo have spoken out too much in the Riigikogu as well as publicly, and shouldn't be covered at least by EKRE's own online news portal "Uued Uudised."

Kuusk and Valge likewise want the party's communication style and tone to change.

EKRE deputy chair Mart Helme said that if people feel like they've become estranged from EKRE's style and principles and that things should change moving forward, then they should- either find enough supporters for their perceptions within the party or quit the party. He doesn't believe those interested in a coup within EKRE have enough supporters.

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