The Bill concerning open candidate lists passed the first reading in the Riigikogu. According to it, the persons entered in the national lists of political parties will be ranked according to the votes they received at the election.

The aim of the Bill on Amendments to the Riigikogu Election Act (3 SE), initiated by the Free Party Faction, is to introduce an open national list in the Riigikogu elections. This means that the persons entered in the list of candidates of a political party are ranked according to the number of votes received and taking into account the size of the electoral district.

The Chairman of the Free Party Faction Andres Herkel said at the sitting that the Bill provides for a change in the way of the acquisition of compensation mandates. “Put more simply, it is a transition to open lists, totally open lists where the idea and meaning of the ranking made by the political party will disappear,” he said.

Herkel said that, according to the Bill, in the distribution of compensation mandates, candidates would be ranked according to their individual weight of votes. “It can be calculated as a percentage of the simple quota of the district. As is known, the simple quota of the district depends on the conditional number of mandates in the district and the number of voters who participated in the elections,” he added. “It can also be said that it depends on the size of district and the mandates distributed there.”

Mart Nutt who made a report on behalf of the Constitutional Committee noted that, according to the analyse presented at the Committee sitting on 12 May, of the persons who received the 22 compensation mandates that were distributed in the Riigikogu elections in 2105, only five would have received the mandate, if the solution offered in this Bill had been used in the distribution of the mandates.

The deadline for motions to amend the Bill is 11 June.

Mihkel Raud, Jüri Adams and Martin Helme took the floor during the debate.

The verbatim record of the sitting (in Estonian): http://stenogrammid.riigikogu.ee/et/201505281000#PKP-16946

Video recordings of the Riigikogu sittings can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/riigikogu (NB! The recording will be uploaded with a delay.)

Riigikogu Press Service

Urmas Seaver

T: 631 6352; 50 39 907

[email protected]

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