Märt Meesak: Criticism of sales signs exposes Reform Party hypocrisy

Commentator Märt Meesak argues that the public debate over signs on strawberry, onion and fish vendor stalls has exposed the hypocrisy of Reform Party politicians. Urmas Paet, Mihkel Lees and Urmas Kruuse have criticised the transport authority, but the question is where they were when the state faced far more serious problems.

Sales signs hanging on strawberry, onion and fish vendor stalls have made waves in recent days in both media outlets and on social media. The issue has unexpectedly become political, and that is what has raised commentator Märt Meesak's eyebrows.

According to Meesak, it is particularly striking that criticism directed at the transport authority comes mainly from Reform Party senior politicians. The list is long: Urmas Paet, Mihkel Lees, Urmas Kruuse and others have all found time to point the finger at the authority that sets the rules for sales signs.

The question of priorities

But Meesak asks directly: where were these same politicians when the state was struggling with far more serious "nonsense"? In his view, the sales signs issue is admittedly convenient and comprehensible to the public, but it does not justify such sudden activism from politicians who have often remained silent in the face of more serious problems.

The crux of the criticism is simple: if a party has been in power and been responsible for the functioning of the state apparatus, then pointing fingers at the bureaucracy their own government created is at best questionable. This is convenient populism, seizing on an easy issue to appear on the public's side, without being willing to answer for the harder questions.