INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Estonias union federal government on Monday stated it wanted to amend the constitution to ban Russian and Belarusian citizens from enacting
local surveys next year, to prevent prospective meddling by Moscow and Minsk.More than 80,000 Russian people hold a home permit in the
previous Soviet republic of 1.3 million people, which acquired its self-reliance in 1991 and is home to a big Russian-speaking minority
Today, we concurred in the union council that we will advise our parliamentary groups amend the constitution as a matter of urgency so that
residents of assailant states will no longer be decision-makers in local elections, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told state
broadcaster ERR on Monday.Permanent residents of the Baltic country presently have a constitutional right to vote in local elections in the
constituency they live in.Various Estonian political celebrations because the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine have proposed
excluding Russians and Belarusians, and sometimes stateless people residing in Estonia, from elections, fearing foreign interference.The
union stated it hoped to change the constitution quickly so that the citizens of the aggressor states and the stateless persons could not
vote at the local elections next October, said Helir-Valdor Seeder, head of the Isamaa (Fatherland) parliamentary faction, in a
statement.The draft amendment might be prepared as early as Thursday.
