Yana Toom, the Center Party’s MEP and a leadership member who is currently negotiating the party’s lists for the local elections in October, told daily Eesti Päevaleht that Prime Minister Jüri Ratas (Center) is in favor of granting citizenship to those holding Alien’s Passports.

Ratas has made statements to the effect in the past, though not about full citizenship to all the stateless holders of the special passport.

“It’s my wish that we would be able to tell between the coalition agreement and the party’s position, they don’t unconditionally have to be the same. Here Ratas has done well saying that he’s in favor of granting holders of the Alien’s Passport citizenship without conditions attached,” Toom said. “This isn’t part of the coalition agreement, but it’s the position of the party.”

Secretary general of the Center Party, Mihhail Korb, told ERR’s radio news on Wednesday that the issue of the Alien’s Passport was not among the topics negotiated between different people in the party. “But should this matter have made it to the table, then there wouldn’t have been any disagreements,” Korb said.

Yana Toom, along with Center Party MP Olga Ivanova, is making demands to the party in return for not running on the list of an election coalition in the local elections later this year.

Savisaar hasn’t expressed wish to run

ERR also asked Korb about the probability of a possible candidacy of former long-time party chairman, Edgar Savisaar. That Savisaar be made part of Center’s list in Tallinn’s Lasnamäe borough, where in the past he was able to score record numbers of votes to his name, is part of the demands of Yana Toom in her negotiations with the party leadership.

Korb said that Savisaar so far hadn’t clearly expressed any wish to be a candidate in Lasnamäe. Korb had also said earlier this week that if Savisaar should run on said list, it would not be as its front runner.

Toom contradicted this, saying that Tallinn deputy mayor Mihhail Kõlvart, the current front runner, surely wouldn’t mind to be replaced with Savisaar.

“As long as he himself doesn’t specifically take the initiative, we can’t talk about a specific place on the list. But I believe that Edgar Savisaar is such a strong politician that he will gather his supporters’ votes no matter where he is on the list,” Korb said.