SDE's main candidate for IT minister Rene Tammist
Social Democratic Party (SDE) chairman Jevgeni Ossinovski is to reveal the name of the new Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology at a party leadership meeting taking place on the sidelines of the Opinion Festival in Paide on Friday. According to unconfirmed reports, outgoing minister Urve Palo will be succeeded by Estonian Renewable Energy Association director Rene Tammist.
Tammist is a member of the SDE and has previously worked as adviser to the S&D Group in the European Parliament's Industry, Research and Energy Committee.
This week, Ossinovski has looked into support for Tammist's candidacy, and the party's leading politicians have been of the opinion that Palo should be replaced as minister by a member of the SDE, not an outsider.
As of Wednesday morning, ERR was unable to get ahold of Tammist himself.
Others named as possible candidates have included Jaanus Marrand, Anto Liivat and Liisa Oviir; Tanel Talve offered himself as a potential candidate. Political observers, however, do not consider any of these possibilities very likely.
Urve Palo handed in her resignation as minister on 23 July. According to the Government of the Republic Act, the prime minister has one month to forward a minister's resignation to the president, the amount of time stipulated for finding a new minister. A minister will then be appointed to office by the President of the Republic within three days of the receipt of a relevant proposal by the prime minister.
Palo will serve out her term as MP, but has previously stated she will not be running for re-election to the Riigikogu. She has yet to decide whether she will remain a member of the SDE parliamentary group.
Editor: Aili Vahtla
