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EESTI ELU reedel, 3. septembril 2021 — Friday, September 3, 2021
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Alar Karis elected President of Estonia general, former rector of the University of Tartu and of the Estonian University of Life Sciences, and only publicly agreed to run as president less than two weeks ago. He will be Estonia’s sixth president. While both coalition parties Center and Reform nominated Karis, it was not clear if a suffi cient number of opposition MPs from the Social Democrats (SDE) and Isamaa would vote for him. Reform and Center together had 59 votes, meaning they needed to find nine more votes from SDE and Isamaa. The first round of voting at the Riigikogu on Monday saw Karis pick up 63 votes, five short of the 68 needed to be elected.
President Kersti Kaljulaid will leave office in October. Karis was proposed for presi dent by the Center Party. The vote count on Tuesday was delayed 30 minutes due to a protest from EKRE MP Kalle Grünthal. He claimed Center Party MP Marika Tuus-Laul, who took part in the vote while seated in a car outside the Riigikogu, was sat too close to an electoral committee official. The 19 EKRE Riigikogu members did not withdraw their ballots and two MPs, Siima Kallas (Reform) and HelirValdor Seeder (Isamaa), did not vote as they are both receiving treatment in hospital. What happens next? Alar Karis will take office on October 11.
President-elect: I’ll keep questions over election process on table
“I have worked for many years at the University of Tartu as a professor and my job has been to teach. And that’s why I also believe in the power of words and role models,” he went on, in response to a question on conspiracy theories surrounding the coronavirus. “What the president should do (is) get a sense of how this society breathes, and where the difficult places are,” Karis said, adding communication was key and did not mean you had to agree with all and sundry. He also said that a president should be capable of involving what he called dubious groups within society. At the same time, this did not mean a president should not express his or her opinion on matters. “The president has the right and obligation to say what she or he sees as wrong, but this always depends on the style of how that gets said and where. It has to be said that sometimes it is more useful to keep quiet. Education should start at the grassroots level when it comes to integration issues, as even in higher education, you can’t start to change things, he said, re ferring to the interface between Estonia’s Russian-speaking mi nority and Estonian-speaking majority. “I want to be a good presi dent for the country, so that everyone feels safe, that the Estonian state develops further and is a good partner for other countries,” he continued. The president-elect said that he had previously argued for the Riigikogu taking on a more prominent role and closely monitoring what the govern ment does, and read drafts care fully. This was brought into sharp relief this week when huge gaping holes were reported in the state budget calculations. “The problem may be that they can’t get any worse,” he said, in relation to the oversights. Finally, the new president said he does not know what the
ERR News, ERR, August 2021
English-language supplement to the Estonian weekly “EESTI ELU” Tartu College Publications Founding Chairman: Elmar Tampõld Editor: Laas Leivat 3 Madison Avenue, Toronto, ON M5R 2S2 T: 416-733-4550 • F: 416-733-0944 • E-mail: editor@eestielu.ca Digital: www.eestielu.ca
Electing Estonia’s president, why change is or is not needed On August 31, the constitu tionally-based process for choosing the next president of Estonia elected Alar Karis in a second round secret ballot. Karis was supported by 72 parliamentarians out of 80 votes cast from a possible 101. In spite of EKRE continuing its boycott of the parliamen tary vote, Karis’ election in parliament was unique. A president is elected if 68 parliamentarians vote for one candidate. The parliament is allowed three attempts. Failing this affirmative total, the pro cess is assumed by an Electoral Body (Valijatekogu) consisting of all parliamentarians and rep resentatives of local councils. Presidents A. Rüütel, T.H. Ilves, K. Kaljulaid had to be affirmed by the Electoral Body. L. Meri, the first post-occupation twoterm president, was elected by a direct, general election for the first term. If the vote goes to the Electoral Body, non-citizens who are allowed to vote in local elections, but not in parliamen tary elections, have had the same influence as citizens in the presidential vote, by elect ing local council members who then were chosen for the Electoral Body electing the president. This indirect election process has been criticized from its inception in 1996. In fact it has been one of EKRE’s main goals, especially recently with organized public demonstra tions. Proponents of direct presi dential elections argue that the electorate want to decide for themselves who’s to be presi dent. They say it’s only possible through a direct vote that the country’s head of state and representative has the support and trust of its citizenry. The pro-arguments continue: The public’s feeling of partici pation increases, the president is less dependent on parliament, government and political parties. In general, a directly elected president would be the people’s choice, not some political grouping, thus strengthening democracy in general. Those who resist direct presi dential elections state that in a parliamentary democracy, as Estonia is constitutionally
structured, direct presidential elections would create un reasonable expectations among the electorate. Estonia’s form of governance grants the president mainly a ceremonial role and the figure that represents the state. Thus, without major changes in division of powers and acti vities, the direct election of the president in Estonia is totally meaningless. Reverting to a form of government with greatly en hanced presidential powers has its own perils, as witnessed in Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, etc. Estonia certainly has reason to oppose power being abused by its total concentration in one entity. But of the 50 European states (not only European Union countries), only 13 elect heads of state are elected through parliament – Albania, Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Malta, San Marino, and Switzerland. These countries are parliamentary republics such as Estonia in which execu tive power arises from the legis lature and is vested in the prime minister as head of government. Ten of the countries are constitutional monarchs, with no presidential elections (in cluding the Holy See). This leaves all the rest of the European countries as similarly structured or as constitutional monarchies. Only Cyprus and Turkey have a full presidential system (France is known as a semi-presidential state) where presidents are chosen directly and serve as both the head of state and government. Outside of Europe, a presi dential system is followed only by a few democracies: Argen tina, Brazil, Mexico, the Philippines. Thus 23 European countries chose heads of state directly but invest this individual with very limited powers – such as Estonia. The reluctance for modern republics to abandon the parlia mentary democratic form of governance is backed by one main argument: Avoidance of the abuse of power. Presidents whose decision-making is auto cratic, who favour authoritarian rule, who have acted unconsti
Alar Karis will become Estonia’s next head of state after being elected president in the Riigikogu on Tuesday during the second round of voting. Karis received 72 votes, passing the 68 votes needed to get elected. Eighty Riigikogu members voted, 72 in favor of Karis with eight leaving their ballots blanks. The vote took place as a secret ballot. After the result was an nounced, Karis said: “I would like to thank everyone who voted for me, as well as those who did not. I promise to be a good partner to the Riigikogu. Thank you very much.” Karis, 63, is a former auditor
ERR, ERR News, August 2021 Newly-elected President of Estonia Alar Karis says that the issue of the electoral pro cess needs to be addressed, and if needed reformed. He will keep the matter in public focus, he added. Appearing on ETV politics discussion show “Esimene stuu dio” Tuesday night, Karis said that the election which returned him was conducted perfectly in line with the constitution. However, dissatisfaction with the process reigned even after previous presidential elections, he said, and the topic had been raised at that point too. Karis said: “I am also saying now that after the elections, I would like to raise this issue, to see if they will continue in the same way or if there is an inter mediate option that would expand the scope; we will also discuss this direct election.” Karis, who was the sole can didate at Monday’s ballot, in which he narrowly missed out on becoming head of state, and at Tuesday’s where he was successful, said that a public
tutionally, who have been grossly derelict in duty, are practically impossible to be removed before the end of their terms. Parliamentary systems can quickly remove such leaders by a quick vote of no confidence. Research has shown that they have greater scores of democra cy, more extensive media free doms, a stronger rule of law, greater constraints on the executive and are usually related to better economic per formances. In spite of this the debate in Estonia will continue about the direct election of a president. Could it eventually mutate into a debate about a presidential form of governance? LAAS LEIVAT
perception of injustice can emerge if a candidate’s name is made public just before the election. Karis, 63, was national museum director up until his election, and was only revealed as the official coalition candi date two weeks before the vote. Karis told “Esimene stuudio” that changes could be made without the constitution having to be amended. Karis said that representa tives of all the Riigikogu parties – the Riigikogu votes in the president, not the public – had contacted him for talks and not vice versa. In the case of the Conser vative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE) this involved only be ing approached by party leader Martin Helme, he said. EKRE had put up its own candidate, Henn Põlluaas, who lacked suf ficient support at the Riigikogu to run. “I’m not a politician, which is why I don’t play games in that way, that someone should ask me and then I give some thing in return,” he said. Nonetheless, he was glad the election was concluded at the Riigikogu rather than extend out to the electoral college, as would have happened if Tuesday’s ballots had drawn a blank. “When I met with the leaders of the parties, they also told me that they wanted to elect the president in the Riigikogu,” he said. Karis said he told those par ties he met with that the presi dent must deal with domestic and foreign policy in equal measure, adding the work of the previous presidents must be continued. Since society is polarized both in Estonia and in other countries, he said, looking for a culprit is not needed, but rather solving problems is. Educating the public also plays an important role, he said.
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