Rüütel won in 2001 after coalition failed to unite

Arnold Rüütel was elected Estonia’s president in 2001 after the governing coalition failed to agree on a candidate, ERR reports.

President Lennart Meri was constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term, making it certain that Estonia would get a new president after his two terms. At the time, Mart Laar’s second government was in power. It included the Pro Patria Union, the Reform Party and the Moderates, later known as the Social Democratic Party, and was commonly called the three-party coalition.

The coalition held 53 seats in parliament, making it effectively impossible to elect a president in the Riigikogu, Estonia’s parliament.

The 2001 election began with rounds of voting in the Riigikogu. The opposition nominated Peeter Kreitzberg, while the coalition put forward Andres Tarand. Kreitzberg received 40 votes and Tarand 38, which was not enough to elect either candidate.

Tarand had been the most popular potential presidential candidate in opinion polls conducted two years earlier, with the support of 17 percent of respondents. He led Edgar Savisaar on 15 percent and Toomas Savi on 11 percent.

Unlike the Centre Party and the Reform Party, however, the Moderates sought to use Tarand’s popularity to benefit the party in the 1999 local elections. In Tallinn, voters were reminded of the campaign by images of the presidential candidate placed on rubbish bins.

The campaign did not bring success to the Moderates. The party was completely defeated in Tallinn and Tartu, and its result across Estonia was also relatively poor. This gave the party little reason for optimism in the electoral college. The contemporary press speculated that Tarand might have been the clear favourite in the presidential election if the Moderates had not presented him as a candidate for the presidency during the 1999 local elections.

In the second round of voting in the Riigikogu, Kreitzberg faced Peeter Tulviste of the Pro Patria Union. Tulviste had become the most popular candidate among the public in opinion polls. Kreitzberg received 36 votes and Tulviste 35. The same pattern was repeated in the third round, when both candidates received only 33 votes.

The election therefore moved to the electoral college. In the first round, held on September 21, the candidates were Peeter Kreitzberg, Arnold Rüütel, Toomas Savi and Peeter Tulviste.

Rüütel received the most votes, 114, but not enough to win. Toomas Savi advanced to the second round with 90 votes, edging Tulviste by a single vote. It was later speculated that Tulviste might have had a better chance against Rüütel if he had finished ahead of Savi.

The second round was held the same day between the two leading candidates. A total of 366 electoral college members took part. Rüütel received 186 votes and Savi 155, while 23 ballots were invalid.

It was believed that the invalid ballots may have come from the Pro Patria Union. Even if all of them had gone to Savi, however, they would not have been enough to change the result. Rüütel won more than half of the votes cast by participating electoral college members and was elected president of Estonia.