Toomas Hendrik Ilves was re-elected President of Estonia in 2011
On August 29, 2011, Toomas Hendrik Ilves was re-elected President of Estonia in the first round of voting in the Riigikogu. He received 73 votes from lawmakers, while his opponent, independent Member of the European Parliament Indrek Tarand, received 25. Three more ballots were declared invalid: two indicated support for both candidates, while one was left blank.
As ERR News reports, as early as January 2010, the Reform Party board stated its readiness to support Ilves if he ran for a second term. Then-Prime Minister and party chairman Andrus Ansip called the president a successful representative of Estonia on the international stage.
Support from three parties
Four political forces entered parliament before the presidential election: the Reform Party had 33 seats, the Centre Party had 26, IRL had 23, and the Social Democratic Party had 19. The Reform Party, IRL and the Social Democrats agreed to jointly support Ilves, giving them a combined 75 parliamentary votes, compared with the 68 required for election.
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In June 2011, Tarand unexpectedly announced his readiness to run, explaining this by the need to preserve the democratic nature of the election. He said he did not approve of voting with one candidate. Centre Party member Aivar Riisalu suggested that Tarand consider participating in the election, while Centre Party leader Edgar Savisaar stressed that Tarand could not be only the candidate of that political force.
Different assessments of the election
Fifteen years later, Tarand said that the idea of running belonged to him personally. He called it important that voters had a choice between two contenders, since, in his view, second place also matters in a democracy.
Riisalu described Tarand as a protest candidate against the current system for electing the president. He also claimed that Tarand's participation made Ilves nervous. At the same time, then-presidential adviser Olari Koppel disputed this assessment: according to him, Tarand's nomination caused surprise rather because of his cooperation with the Centre Party. Koppel noted that the 2011 election was calm and that Ilves retained broad support thanks to his work as president.
