Ojuland says Reform's voting system can be manipulated

Photo: Liis Treimann

MEP Kristiina Ojuland, member of the governing board of the Estonian Reform Party who has emerged as the central figure in the scandal over alleged vote manipulation in Reform's internal voting, on Monday described the Reform Party's internal voting system as built up in such way that it can be manipulated.

"The election system has been built up in a fashion so it can be manipulated," Ojuland told a press conference. She also said that statements by the party's chairman Andrus Ansip were directed against her and the party's leadership was denying that similar vote rigging had been taking place all over Estonia.

"One's opted for the path of scapegoating," Ojuland said. She said that in this manner Andrus Ansip was trying to cover up the vote rigging that had taken place within the party across Estonia and not this year alone. Ojuland emphasized that vote manipulation in the Reform Party internal elections has taken place all over Estonia, not only the West-Viru and Voru counties.

Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, chairman of Reform, said earlier on Monday that Ojuland, who heads the party's West-Viru regional organization, paid party membership dues of the people whose identity she stole to vote in internal leadership elections.

Ansip told reporters after a meeting of the party's parliamentary group that Ojuland had made payments from her own bank account to pay membership dues of 39 people whose identities are suspected to have been misused in internal elections, the daily Postimees reported on Monday.

"Firstly, this certainly indicates to me that this whole case of using other persons' identities in the internal election cannot have come as such a big surprise to Kristiina Ojuland as she is currently saying," Ansip said.

He added that paying other people's membership dues is not a crime in itself but if it is followed by misuse of those people's identity it is not acceptable. "There are too many connections here to think that all this somehow just happened," he said.

As to further steps, Ansip said first the findings of the investigation group set up by the party have to be awaited, then the position of the party's court of honor, and only thereafter can the board of the party take its own decisions, Postimees said.

Ojuland has called a press conference for 3:30 Monday at the press center of BNS to give explanations about the vote manipulating suspicions raised against her.

The weekly Eesti Ekspress reported on Thursday it had information which suggests that online votes were cast in the party board elections in the name of elderly members of the party who actually did not participate in the vote. According to the paper fraud was committed in both the 2011 and 2013 leadership election. Six senior citizens from the West-Viru region told the paper that they had not participated in the election although records show they had cast e-votes. The paper believes this may be just the tip of the iceberg as it took only the West-Viru region under scrutiny.

Eesti Ekspress suspects that fictitious e-mail addresses were created in the name of the pensioners who had joined the party to obtain from the party headquarters passwords and user names which then were used to log in to the party's internal network and cast e-ballots to affect the outcome of the elections.

It is the Reform Party's practice to restrict access to personal data of members of regional organizations to the regional leader and development director, in this case MEP Kristiina Ojuland and Taimi Samblik. Ojuland on Friday denied involvement in the voting fraud.

The Reform Party has formed an investigative group to look into the allegations which consists of MPs Vaino Linde and Peep Aru, head of the party's regional organizations division Reimo Nebokat, IT chief Mati Leet and secretary general Martin Kukk.