Centre Party MPs to skip ballots as EKRE boycotts Estonia vote

All seven Centre Party members of Estonia’s parliament will attend Wednesday’s presidential election session but will not take ballot papers, while the nine EKRE MPs will not attend, ERR reported.

Anastassia Kovalenko-Kõlvart, a Centre Party parliamentary group member, said the decision followed a discussion among the group’s members. Each had decided to be present in the chamber without participating in the vote.

She said the principle of a free mandate, which follows from the Constitution, meant that MPs could either take part in a vote or choose not to do so.

“We have decided to come and be present in the chamber, but not take the ballot paper,” Kovalenko-Kõlvart said on the television programme Terevisioon. She added that the decision was an individual one for each group member.

Anti Poolamets of EKRE said his party’s MPs would leave their seats empty. EKRE has nine members in parliament.

Poolamets said EKRE would hold a demonstration at 11 a.m. calling for the direct election of the president. He said the party hoped the election would move from parliament to the electoral college.

He described the current presidential election system as having broken down, arguing that there was one candidate and no debates about the candidate’s foreign policy or national security positions.

Poolamets also criticised what he called a separation-of-powers problem, saying the Reform Party, which performed best in the previous elections, appointed the president, the chancellor of justice, Supreme Court judges and the auditor general. He said direct presidential elections would prevent the process from being controlled by a single group behind closed doors.