Centre civil war drags board member before court of honour

Photo: Sander Ilvest

Yesterday, power struggle in Centre entered fresh phase as working group called by secretary-general Priit Toobal decided to summons Mailis Reps, party board and Riigikogu member, before court of honour.   

According to Mr Toobal, Ms Reps sent him applications by 18 Centre members from Türi department a day before Rapla County annual meeting.

The applications were about swapping their region for Rapla, within the party regional system.

The background to such swaps are regional leadership elections within Centre Party, as opposing camps seek to secure wins to their respective candidates. 

Mr Toobal says that as they checked the applications, a large part of these 18 people were unaware of the swap.

Also, Mr Toobal said the «applications came not from e-mail addresses of these people or by sighed post, but from the computer of Mailis Reps and all at once.»

Ms Reps says the whole story is fabricated.

Intimidation attempted?

«If it were not for this, perhaps they would have found that I crossed a street with wrong foot first. Actually, the content matters not as this is about the struggle that is ongoing about the party regions. Whatever goes, all kinds of lies are being cooked up,» said Ms Reps.

Ms Reps says the idea is to throw certain supporters of Kadri Simson – who run for party chairmanship against Edgar Savisaar last year and narrowly lost – out of the party.

She said this would be to intimidate the others to leave at free will.

Yesterday, Postimees failed in its attempts to contact Priit Toobal about the issue.