Centre Party split reshapes Kohtla-Järve leadership

Kohtla-Järve’s Centre Party councillors have lost their governing majority less than a year after winning the local elections, leading 15 city council members to form a new ruling coalition, ERR reported.

The Centre Party won 14 seats in the 25-member Kohtla-Järve city council in last autumn’s local elections, enough to govern alone. Its faction has now broken up for the second consecutive council term.

“There had been disagreements in the faction for a long time, and this is probably the logical conclusion. Unfortunately, we had problems and different opinions, and we could no longer reach an agreement,” said council chairman Sergei Lopin, a former Centre Party member.

Mare Roosileht, chair of the Restart Kohtla-Järve electoral alliance faction, said she believed the new coalition would remain in place until the next elections.

“The time when one or two people made decisions alone and told others how to vote and what decisions to make is over,” Roosileht said. She added that the city council and city government were now led by younger people who wanted to be independent, be heard and have their views taken into account.

The faction of another party has also broken up in Kohtla-Järve. One of the three Koos councillors decided to leave both the party and its faction.