Isamaa to support draft amendment to Constitution at first reading
Helir-Valdor Seeder, chair of Isamaa's Riigikogu group, said his party will support the draft amendment to the Estonian Constitution proposed by the governing coalition at the first reading on Wednesday, even if Isamaa's own draft does not receive enough support.
"Regardless of how they vote on this bill, which was initiated by 28 members of the Riigikogu, we want to reach a result and will support both bills in any case, including the adoption of the first reading of the bill initiated by 61 members of the Riigikogu," Seeder told ERR.
Seeder said that he would like to see both the draft proposed by the coalition and the draft initiated by Isamaa pass the first reading.
"We would like to find as much common ground as possible and merge the two drafts during the procedure. And to reach a point where, not only citizens of the aggressor state but also stateless persons would be deprived of their voting rights," Seeder said.
Last week, the Riigikogu's Constitutional Committee decided move forward with the coalition's draft, which was initiated by 61 MPs. Meanwhile the draft proposed by Isamaa, which had collected 28 signatures, was not supported by the committee.
Seeder said he hoped that the coalition deputies would change their minds and give their support to Isamaa's bill.
Under the coalition's draft, the right to vote would remain intact for people without a defined home address.
"At the insistence of the SDE, the coalition wants to grant the right to vote in local elections to stateless persons at the level of the Constitution. This is not reasonable," an Isamaa press release on Tuesday evening said.
Isamaa's leadership called on the coalition to abandon this agreement. "We call on the governing parties not to be guided by a short-term vision on such a serious issue as Constitutional change. We do not want to give more rights to stateless persons at the Constitutional level."
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