Center Party MEP Yana Toom to run in Ida-Viru County in Riigikogu elections

11/11/2022

Center Party MEP Yana Toom is to run in the Ida-Viru County constituency at next spring's Riigikogu elections ERR News reports.

Toom, who is party vice-chair, will not be number one candidate on Center's Ida-Viru County list, but will be listed second after MP and former sumo wrestler Kaido Höövelson Center says, while party chair Jüru Ratas says Tooms's addition to the list makes the party the strongest in that constituency.

While Toom is a well-known figure in Ida-Viru County politics, balancing running there as the front-runner candidate with her work as an MEP had complicated this, she said.

However, running in second place appears to have been a compromise. "I am a team player, and am placed second on the list," Toom said.

The region's specific challenges are familiar to her, while developments in recent months have worsened the situation in Ida-Viru County, Toom said.

She said, via a press release, that: "Certainly, residents' socio-economic conditions, the energy sector and the future of the oil shale sector are in the front rank of issues."

"At the same time, there is also a lot of fear and disappointment and rifts present in society which cannot be ignored," Toom continued, likely referring to controversy over the removal of a World War Two-era Soviet tank, which had functioned as a war memorial and was located just outside Narva, to a museum near Tallinn.

Polling day is March 5, 2023 and is preceded by several days' advance voting.