Estonian presidents (0)

Estonian presidents
Estonia has only had 4 presidents, since it’s been a republic for little time.
Konstantin Päts ( 1874 -1956) was the first president of Estonia. His reign as a president started in 1938 and ended in 1940. Päts’ political career started early. He served as a municipal advisor in 1904 and had many political positions after that. With his speech during the War of Independence he put a basis to Estonian economy . Päts’ position as a president ended when Soviet Union occupied Estonia in 1940. Päts was forced to leave his office and was deported to Leningrad with his family. In 1941, he was arrested. In time he ended up in psychiatric hospital , where he died in 1956.
Konstantin Päts giving a speech in 1919.
Lennart Meri (1929-2006). His reign as the second president of Estonia started in 1992 and ended in 2001. He started out as a writer and filmmaker . Through his political activeness he got the position of Foreign minister in 1990. In 1992 he became the president of Estonia. In 1996 he was re-elected and stayed on his position as the president until election in 2001. He died in 2006 because of brain tumor . "In his nine years as head of state, Meri both restored the presidency and built up the Republic of Estonia in the widest sense," president Rüütel had said.
Arnold Rüütel (1928-). Before his position as president he was a teacher at the Tartu School of Mechanization of Agriculture from 1955 to 1957. In 1957, he was appointed as head expert in livestock and director of the experimental farm of the Estonian Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Institute, and in 1963 he was appointed as Director of theTartu Model Sovkhoz, a position he held until 1969. From 1969 to 1977, Arnold Rüütel was Rector of the Estonian Academy of Agriculture. In 2001 he was elected as president. While his reign. Estonia joined the European Union. Rüütel lost his position as president in 2006, when Ilves won the election with 174 votes, while Rüütel got 162.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves (1953-) is the fourth president of Estonia. He was born in Sweden and moved to the United States when he was 5. In 1981 he moved to Canada . In 1996-1998 he was Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs. Ilves became a president candidate in 2006 and won the elections. In 2011 he was re-elected.