In an extraordinary sitting held Saturday, members of the 31-seat Narva City Council voted 16-13 in favor of the no-confidence motion against Toots.

The council then elected Raik as the new mayor, with 17 votes in favor and three against.

In a separate, 16-12 vote, the city council also expressed no confidence in deputy city council chair Natalia Umarova. Narva City Council thereafter elected two new deputy chairs: Jana Kondrašova (16 votes) and Vladimir Žavoronkov (17 votes).

The coalition of Katri Raik and Mihhail Stalnuhhin that has come to power in Narva holds 17 votes in the 31-seat city council. The Center Party is now in opposition.

Also on the city council's agenda was a no-confidence vote against council chair Tatjana Stolfat, who quit the Center Party on November 30. The no-confidence motion against Stolfat did not pass, with 14 council members against and none in favor.

On November 21, 17 members of Narva City Council, from the Respect group led by Katri Raik (SDE) and Narva 2.0 group led by independent Mihhail Stalnuhhin, introduced a no-confidence motion against Mayor Jaan Toots (Center).

Despite a 15-3 vote in favor on November 30, the motion failed to pass as it did not secure the 16 votes needed to express no confidence.

According to ERR's information, Respect group deputy chair Vladimir Žavoronkov was absent, while Narva 2.0 group members Aleksei Mägi, Vadim Orlov and Jelena Kavrus abstained from the vote on November 30.

Raik: Narva's political culture in its infancy

Saturday's extraordinary city council sitting demonstrated just how quickly the situation in Narva politics can change. Barely a week ago, the northeastern border city's Center Party group had announced that they had the votes together to govern the city. Now, they've lost the mayor's seat instead.

The Center Party is blaming defectors who switched to Raik's side at the last minute.

"I did my best to remove her," said Aleksei Jevgrafov, chair of the Center group in Narva City Council. "And now the people with whom we voted against her are raising their hands. I'm at a loss for words."

The deciding factor ended up being three independent members, led by Vladimir Žavoronkov, to whom Center had promised the position of city council chair. The Raik-Stalnuhhin camp elected him deputy chair instead.

According to Žavoronkov, cooperation with the Center Party was unsuccessful from the start, and for several reasons, including the opposition within Narva Museum's supervisory board.

"Our demand was for a working peace at Narva Museum, to swap out its supervisory board and to end the opposition to the Estonian state," he explained. "And then, in fact, things escalated. I realized it would never end."

Raik, who was elected mayor of Narva for the third time now, plans to lead the city through the next local elections, provided Narva City Council doesn't change its mind in the meantime.

"I hope that a working peace will emerge and that this working peace will last, but it's certainly not going to be an easy road," she acknowledged. "Narva's political culture is still in its infancy, and needs further nurturing and development. We're going to try to contribute to that."

Raik will present the new city government to Narva City Council on January 3.

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