Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said today that Priit Kama cannot hope to become the next director general of the Police Border Guard Board if Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee does not support him.
"There doesn't seem to be much hope for the most talked-about candidate to earn the endorsement of the committee," Ansip told ERR radio.
"The interior minister must decide whether to bring before the government a candidate that the government and Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee will definitely endorse, or to attempt to push through a candidate whose current support level is relatively weak," Ansip said.
The prime minister added that the issue wasn't one that could threaten the coalition government between the Reform Party and IRL.
According to Postimees, Kama's candidacy was brought up at a Reform Party leadership meeting this week, where, the newspaper reported, it was unanimously felt that the search for the next police chief had been sloppy, hasty and incomprehensible.
Sources from IRL have asserted that the Reform Party is purposefully trying to drag the process to keep IRL's minister under fire.
Yesterday, President Toomas Hendrik Ilves met Interior Minister Ken-Marti Vaher. Ilves said the transparency of the search for a police chief has come under doubt, is worrying, and has caused bewilderment among the public and tensions in the police organization.
Former interior ministers and police chiefs have written a open letter censuring the interior minister for the selection process and opposing the emergence of a candidate who was not originally considered. The letter also said that the ministry had publicly smeared respected candidates by holding a public contest and then deciding last week that none of them was acceptable. A panel then tapped a Justice Ministry official and IRL member, Priit Kama, for the job, pending approval from Vaher.
Vaher has not yet officially nominated Kama. The Legal Affairs Committee has scheduled the issue for its March 18 agenda.
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