Candidates submitted for registration ahead of local elections in Tallinn

By the 6 p.m. Tuesday deadline, a total of seven parties, six election coalitions and eight independent candidates had submitted themselves to be registered for the Oct. 15 local elections in Tallinn.
The Social Democratic Party (SDE), who were the first to arrive at the electoral office to submit their candidate list, claimed that they were going to start a revolution in Estonian politics.
While they announced that they had more men than women candidates on their list, the party's mayoral candidate did not respond when asked why there was nonetheless just one woman among their top spots for city districts, reported ETV news broadcast "Aktuaalne kaamera"
The Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (IRL) arrived with an even longer list of 170 candidates in all.
"We want there not to be a sole power in Tallinn anymore, definitely, and this specifically is the primary goal toward which we are working," said Viktoria Ladõnskaja, IRL's candidate for city council chair.
The ruling Center Party arrived at Tallinn City Hall with hundreds of applications packed into two cardboard boxes.
"There are almost as many applications in these two boxes as submitted by five parties in Tallinn combined," noted Center Party mayoral candidate Taavi Aas. "There are more than 500 of them."
This is the longest list of candidates the Center Party has ever had. "The list is so long because there are a lot of people that have wanted tun run [in the Center Party]," he noted.
The shortest list was submitted by the election coalition Subway City (Metroolinn), with just 15 candidates. "One of our primary campaign promises is to stand for the idea of constructing a light rail-half-subway," noted Subway City founder Jevgeni Krištafovitš.
The election coalition Our Tallinn (Meie Tallinn) has 34 candidates, whose goal is to establish a new political party in time for the next Riigikogu elections.
Not long before the 6 p.m. deadline, the Estonian Greens, headed by chairwoman Züleyxa Izmailova, submitted 98 candidates for the Tallinn elections, while election coalition Free Citizen of Tallinn (Vaba Tallinna Kodanik) submitted a list of 84 candidates.
Editor: Aili Vahtla