Abdul Turay to leave Social Democrats
Tallinn city's councillor Abdul Turay announced today that he is about to leave the Social Democratic Party. He explained it with a following statement.
Dear friend and colleagues in the media.
It will come as a bit of shock to you to know that I have decided to leave the Social Democrats.
The principle reason is that the social democrats decided to stay in the coalition government. Since I was in that meeting I can say that the reason wasn't because of the interests of the country or their supporters but to keep their positions and jobs.
Furthermore, I disagree with the party on a number of issues and policies. I believe Estonia should only take refugees who want to come here, not force them to come here. Quotas are wrong. It is also wrong to give refugees special treatment.
I also feel the party's equal opportunities policy is causing a lot of bad relations between the genders, The party seems to be pushing the idea that Estonian men are chauvinists who earn too much and beat their wives. It is no surprise that support for the party among male voters is so low. Men and women are not in competition with each other they are each others "abi kassa".
I will be joining the Tallinn Development and Training Centre, I will be representing Tallinn in the EU capital promoting the city as a cosmopolitan and dynamic city. It is an exciting opportunity to do something good for the city and the country, not- to mention the symbolism of someone with a Muslim name representing this city in Europe's capital a few weeks after that capital was bombed by Muslims.
I should mention that I was invited to join Keskerakond but I refused. At this point I am not ready for that step, but I don't rule it out at some point in the future. I need guarantees that there is no Russian money funding the party.
No-one put any pressure on me to leave the Social Democrats, this is something I have been thinking about for a while.
Tallinn, with public transport, new shopping centres and public spaces , has developed significantly in the last seven years since I have been here. As a city councillor I can see that most of decisions made in the city council makes are agreed by SDE faction.
