Jurtšenko led the Lasnamäe district council from February 2022 until earlier this year when the Center-SDE coalition was replaced by the new SDE, Reform, Isamaa and Eesti 200 coalition.  

The city government gets the final say on the appointment.

Deputy Mayor Madle Lippus (SDE) said Jurtšenko will be put forward for the position and will join the party.

"Julianna Jurtšenko joining the SDE is an important addition to our strong team. She has a wide range of experience in Tallinn's municipal system, most recently as an elder in the Lasnamäe district. She is familiar to many Lasnamäe residents and she knows what their concerns and expectations are. I believe that Julianna's experience and knowledge will support her to succeed as a district elder," she said.

As of 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Jurtšenko was still a member of the Center Party, which she joined on December 18, 2008.

One potential problem bump in the road is that Jurtšenko has also criticized the transition to Estonian language education.

Her comments were explained in a statement released on Wednesday afternoon. She called the transition "very necessary" but "difficult", adding "efforts must be made at all levels for the reform to succeed".

Jurtšenko praised some changes made over the summer by the government that offer additional support to Lasnamäe schools.

Under the terms of the coalition agreement, Lasnamäe district elder is a position belonging to SDE. The party's first choice Tatjana Lavrova withdrew after comments on the Soviet war legacy and her involvement with efforts to contact Russian leader Vladimir Putin several years ago were published in the media.

Until now, Kirill Klaus (SDE) has acted as deputy elder of the Lasnamäe.

The district is the largest in Tallinn with almost 120,000 residents. This is bigger than Tartu, Estonia's second biggest city.

Center chairman: News comes as no surprise

Jurtšenko's nomination did not come as a surprise to Center Party Chairman Mihhail Kõlvart. He said the negotiations had been known about for a long time, despite SDE's attempts to keep them secret.

"Dear [Mayor of Tallinn] Mr. [Jevgeni] Ossinovski announced a few months ago that there was an agreement and that he could not say who the person would be who would become the new mayor of the district. But when we found out, we understood why it was a big secret at first. So it turns out that the negotiations had been going on for several months and today we were told what was really going on," Kõlvart told ERR.

He added that it was known SDE was trying to attract someone from Center to the role.

"After all, we knew from the beginning that our people were being consulted and our people kept letting me know that they were being approached. Julianna was not the first person to be offered the position of a elder in the Lasnamäe district. It was offered to Nikita Groznov [former Kesklinn deputy mayor] as well as to another one of our people who has the same experience, i.e. the experience of a district mayor, so Julianna is at least our third person," he said.

Kõlvart would not say who else had been approached.

Jurtšenko told him of her decision on Wednesday, just before the news came to light, the chairman said.

"I have not been able to get in touch with her much lately, firstly because she wasn't active for a long time and secondly because she was quite hard to get hold of," stated Kõlvart.

According to him, Jurtšenko said her reason for leaving the party was the joining of the former EKRE member Jaak Madison.

"She said that the main reason is Jack Madison. But with all due respect, that is not very believable, because we know that the negotiations started a long time ago. And there was already talk last week that there would be some kind of bombshell coming out this Wednesday, maybe in fact, the agreement was reached a long time ago and it has nothing to do with Jaak Madison joining," Kõlvart added.

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