Goran Lefkov
Silver Meikar is a striking figure in investigative journalism who remained faithful to the principles in all the positions he held in Estonian society and in the European Parliament. Born in 1978 in Tartu, he started his political activities in his student days, when he was elected a member of the Tartu city council. He finished his education in his hometown, where he started his career.
In 2003, Silver Meikar became a deputy member of the Estonian parliament while Margus Hanson became the Minister of Defense. Silver Meikar was also a candidate for the European Parliament in 2004, but failed to secure a seat in Strasbourg. He lost his seat in the Estonian parliament because Margus Hanson was fired in November 2004 for stealing classified documents from his home. Meikar sat on the parliamentary bench again on 23 November 2006, as Margus Hanson was convicted of leaking state classified information.
Silver Meikar was reelected to the Estonian Parliament on 4 March 2007 and was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
He became known for political activities that include defending human rights in Belarus, Burma, China, Russia and elsewhere, drawing attention to the plight of developing countries and supporting the reform process in Ukraine and Georgia. He has also advocated respect for civil liberties in Estonia. Silver Meikar has been a promoter of the idea of electronic voting and e-democracy in Estonia. He has been the first Estonian politician to create a personal blog.
In May 2012, Meikar published an article in which he admitted that he had donated cash to the Estonian Reform Party in 2009 and 2010, which came from unknown sources and had been given to him by his fellow party member Kalev Lillo. The brain of the whole operation was the General Secretary of the Estonian Reform Party, Kristen Michal. The scandal became known as Silvergate. Criminal charges were filed against Lillo and Michal. After a long and heated discussion in the media, the charges were dropped, as it was not possible to gather enough evidence. On October 24, 2012, Meikar was expelled from the party. As a result, Kristen Michal stepped down as Minister of Justice.
This whistleblowing case is very similar to the case initiated by the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office in our country, where the party VMRO-DPMNE was convicted for illegal financing of the party treasury. A large part of this investigation was conducted following the previous writings of SCOOP Macedonia, whose research showed that VMRO-DPMNE is one of the richest parties in Europe according to the assets it has.
