ERR
Former IRL MP Andres Herkel said that his election coalition Free Patriotic Citizen and a NGO called a Better Estonia will form a new political power to break the current political oligopoly.

We find that the Ice Cellar, People's Assembly, Charter 12 and other grass roots initiatives have exhausted their potential and have mostly remained marginalized. Therefore the next step must be taken,” Herkel said on Sunday.

The goal, according to Herkel, is to rebuild voters trust towards the state.

Maario Laas, head of a Better Estonia, said that the current parties lack a clear vision of what Estonia should be like, “Copying various success stories will never allow us to achieve what we actually want. Bold ideas on how we see a perfect Estonia in 50 or 100 years are needed to pull Estonia out of the current crisis.”

The Free Patriotic Citizen, which just missed out on the Tallinn City Council, but won three seats on Tartu's council at the October local elections, has around 300 members, while a Better Estonia has no fixed membership. One thousand signatures are needed to create a political party in Estonia.

According to the agreement between the two organizations, a committee to register the party will be set up in February.

This makes Herkel the first of the three potential challengers on the party landscape - the others are former bank official Jaan Männik and the MEP Kristiina Ojuland - take specific action toward creating a party.

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