Paper: Savisaar to suspend Tallinn council membership

Former longtime chairman of the Centre Party and Tallinn ex-mayor Edgar Savisaar is to suspend his membership of Tallinn City Council for three months, reported daily Postimees.
As Savisaar was the only candidate of the pre-election coalition named after him to make it to the council, his substitute member will come from Pro Patria.
Savisaar's seat will be taken by Olle Koop, an adviser to the council's Pro Patria group told Postimees.
Pro Patria group chairwoman Riina Solman said that the Centre Party, which governs alone in the capital city, now commands only a narrow majority of votes in the council, and they are interested in Savisaar continuing as a member of the council.
"From the recent court decision we learned that Edgar Savisaar's health condition does not permit him to stand trial," Solman said. "For the same reason the former mayor is not capable of representing his voters on Tallinn City Council. The opposition in Tallinn, led by Pro Patria, has for years already been talking about systemic errors in the governance of the city, and one more seat for the Pro Patria group may bring us very close to effective substantive change in the governance of the city."
When Savisaar suspends his mandate as a member of the council, the opposition will command 39 seats and the Centre Party 40 seats in the 79-seat city council.
Savisaar, who ran in the 2017 elections on the ticket of the Savisaar Election Coalition and Active Tallinn, was the sole candidate of the election coalition to win a seat in the council. Currently, he is the only non-aligned member of the council.
Editor: Aili Vahtla
Source: BNS