Five Kohtla-Järve councillors, led by Lopin, quit Centre Party faction
Five members of the Kohtla-Järve city council's Centre Party faction, including council chairman Sergei Lopin, have resigned from it. Only six members now remain in the faction.
On Monday, 24 August, the Kohtla-Järve city document register received resignation statements from five members of the Centre Party faction on the city council. The departing members are council chairman Sergei Lopin, along with councillors Zaur Abbasov, Jelena Mutonen, Ivetta Sakkart and Jevgeni Saltykov. The statements were electronically signed on 23 August.
Both Lopin and deputy council chair Ivetta Sakkart remain formal members of the Centre Party according to the Commercial Register. Lopin had also chaired the centrist faction. He did not respond to calls from a Rus.ERR reporter on Monday evening.
Following the departures, only six councillors remain in the Centre Party faction: Valeri Korb (deputy chair), Sergei Buchinski, Raisa Bazhenova, Jevgenija Dvornik, Svetlana Korotkova and Ludmila Latt.
Earlier developments
In early August, non-affiliated councillor Kristiina Agu had already left the faction. At that time, the party branch board, led by former deputy mayor Ludmila Latt, decided to continue working in the city council as an opposition force, though not all faction members agreed with that approach.
Negotiations on forming a coalition are still ongoing in Kohtla-Järve, and the emerging coalition will likely now be able to count on support from the councillors who left the Centre Party faction.
In late June, the city council removed Mayor Max Kaur, a Centre Party representative, from office. Evelin Danilov was elected as his successor and formed a new city government. Representatives of the electoral coalition "Restart" — Jaanek Pahka, Denis Vershinin and Alena Kõpp — became deputy mayors. Even before the no-confidence vote, Svetlana Kollo and Maksim Chaltsev had already resigned from the Centre Party faction.
Despite the change of power, the posts of council chairman and deputy chairman remained with Centre Party members Lopin and Sakkart, respectively.
The Kohtla-Järve city council has 25 members. "Restart" is now the largest faction with 7 seats, followed by the Centre Party with 6 and Koos with 3. Nine councillors — Kollo, Chaltsev, Agu, Lopin, Sakkart, Mutonen, Abbasov, Saltykov, and Jelena Bezvoditskaja, who left "Restart" — are currently unaffiliated.
