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 leadership election announced on Monday she intends to initiate convocation of a new party convention and does not rule out running for chairmanship at it.
The Reform Party congress at the end of May reelected Andrus Ansip chairman. He was the sole candidate for the position.
Ojuland told reporters on Monday that Ansip's statements are "clearly directed against me."
The party "has taken the path of looking for a scapegoat," Ojuland said. In her words, Ansip is thereby trying to cover up election fraud that has been committed within the party across Estonia and not solely this year. She claimed that voting has been manipulated at Reform's internal elections throughout the country, not just in the West-Viru and Voru regions.
The chairman of the party, Prime Minister Andrus Ansip told journalists after a meeting of Reform's parliamentary group earlier on Monday that Ojuland paid party membership dues for the people whose identity she used to cast votes online in the party's internal election. In his words, Ojuland paid the membership due for 39 people.
"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.
After the scandal broke last week the Public Prosecutor's Office said it has no plans for the time being to initiate a probe into the alleged voting fraud at the Reform Party's internal elections but the situation may change if someone feels his or her identity has been misused. Leading public prosecutor Dilaila Nahkur-Tammiksaar said the Penal Code does contain provisions on election-related offenses but they only pertain to general, municipal and European Parliament elections.
"Identity theft presupposes a concrete consequence, that is, damage to a person's law-protected rights or interests, which however is not apparent from the article. If the persons mentioned in the article feel that their rights have been infringed upon they have to turn to law enforcement agencies," she told BNS at the end of May.
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.
According to the Reform Party's articles of association, an extraordinary congress can be convened by the chairman, the governing board, the auditing committee or the policy-making council. It also is possible if requested by at least one tenth of members with advance notification of at least seven days.