Businessman Juri Mois says offered Greens to finance their campaign

Photo: Erik Prozes

Estonian businessman Juri Mois has admitted that he offered to pay for the campaign of the Greens ahead of the October local polls and made it conditional on the Greens abandoning their opposition to Rail Baltic.

Mois said he made the proposal to the Greens at the end of May and was making no secret of it.

"I'm looking for a party on whose ticket to run for a seat in the Tallinn council in the fall. I also considered the Greens, but I do not like it that they are against Rail Baltic. I told them that I was ready to run in their ranks and organize their pre-election campaign if they stopped their opposition to Rail Baltic," Mois said.

The leader of Greens, a party not represented in parliament, had previously claimed that a person active in business and politics offered to finance the Greens' campaign ahead of the municipal elections of this fall in return for the party supporting Rail Baltic, but did not disclose the name of that person.

"We decided that, for different reasons, we will not make public the name of the person who made the offer," the leader of Greens, Zuleyxa Izmailova, told BNS earlier on Monday.

"We didn't record what was said at the meeting and thus we have no waterproof evidence. We rather wish to concentrate on the fact that offers like this are made at all," she said.

According to Izmailova, a person well known in business and politics contacted her in mid-May to inform that there is a very concrete proposal for the Greens in connection with the upcoming elections, and requested a prompt meeting. At the meeting which took place a few days later the person offered that in return for supporting rail Baltic, the electoral campaign of the Greens would be paid for.

"We didn't get to the amounts of money. According to the person who made the offer, our election campaign would be paid for," Izmailova said in separate remarks to Postimees.

The meeting was attended by Izmailova, the person who sought the meeting, and two members of the governing board of the Greens.

The leader of the Greens said that if they disclosed the person's name, the person might go to court and force the Greens to become busy with something that would divert their attention from their actual objectives.

"And we see that the name is absolutely not crucial, because what matters is that offers like this are made. And when it comes to the person who made this offer, there was absolutely no doubt that it was meant seriously," the party leader added.

Izmailova also said that they are fully aware that coming up withe information without disclosing the name of the party that made the offer may not leave the best impression of the leaders of the Greens. "Today [Monday] was the last day to do something with this information, and we could no longer remain silent," Izmailova said referring to the fact that the parliament is to take the final vote on the bill of ratification of the Rail Baltic agreement on Monday. 

Izmailova did not rule out the possibility that money had been paid or promised also to someone else who are now supporting Rail Baltic.