From: thietaniemi@cc.helsinki.fi
Newsgroups: talk.politics.soviet
Subject: Re: Meri elected ESTONIAN president
Date: 7 Oct 92 04:04:01 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki


    I found this in my email and post it further (a quotation follows:)


         ESTONIAN PRESIDENT SEEKS INTEGRATION WITH EUROPE
    
    By Oliver Wates MOSCOW, Oct 6, Reuter - Nationalist Lennart Meri
    was sworn in as Estonian president on Tuesday and pledged to
    integrate his tiny Baltic state into Europe after 50 years of
    Soviet rule. "For more than half a century, Estonia has been cut
    off from the rest of the world, there has been no legitimate
    government here," he told reporters outside the 18th century
    parliament in Tallinn. "This also means that Estonia has lagged
    considerably behind the rest of Europe. But we will use all our
    perseverance to strongly integrate Estonia into Europe again."
    Meri, 63, whose Fatherland party advocates sweeping away all
    vestiges of the 1940-1991 Soviet era, was elected president by
    parliament on Monday, despite coming only second in national
    elections on September 20. He takes over from Arnold Ruutel, the
    popular favourite in the elections, who has taken a more
    conciliatory line towards Moscow and Estonia's 40 per cent
    voteless Russian minority. Parliament's decision by a 59-31 vote
    to ignore the popular preference for Ruutel has provoked only
    muted protests. Ruutel, who piloted the nation of 1.6 million
    people to independence from Moscow last year, has kept out of
    public view. But the tough residence and language conditions for
    voting rights, which effectively excluded all Russians, have
    caused concern among human rights organisations and anger in
    Moscow. Meri's views on Estonian citizenship were apparent in
    his carefully-phrased remark outside parliament on Tuesday: "We
    want to make Estonia a small but modern European country where
    all citizens would have their civil rights and all its people
    would have their human rights. The transition period in Estonian
    history is over now." The bald, bespectacled former historian
    earlier took the oath of office. Raising his right hand, he
    promised to obey Estonia's new constitution, approved by a
    referendum in June, and to work "for the Estonian people and the
    republic." Members of parliament applauded after the national
    anthem and a girl in national costume presented him a bunch of
    white roses. Tallinn's tiny diplomatic corps and some envoys
    based in neighbouring Finland joined Meri at the presidential
    palace for a reception. The election campaign was marked by
    allegations, denied by Meri, that his diplomat father had been
    an agent for the Soviet KGB secret police. The family was
    deported to Central Asia in 1941, shortly after the Soviet
    annexation of Estonia. Meri returned after five years. An expert
    in the history of Finno-Ugric peoples, he worked in the radio
    and film industry and the Estonian Writers Union. He was made
    foreign minister in 1990 and ambassador to Finland earlier
    this  year.


      ESTONIAN PARLIAMENT ELECTS LENNART MERI PRESIDENT

TALLINN (OCT. 5) DPA - The Estonian parliament elected former
foreign  minister Lennart Meri president of the Baltic republic
Monday by 59 votes out of a total of 101. Meri is supported by the
Fatherland Party (Isamaa). His rival, Arnold Ruutel, received 31
votes. Eleven ballot papers were declared invalid. It was left to
parliament to choose the president after Ruutel's victory two weeks
ago in the country's first free elections since 1940 left him
without an absolute majority.


the observer
Tapani Hietaniemi, University of Helsinki