ERR News Poll: Marina Kaljurand Preferred as the New Foreign Minister, Pentus-Rosimannus Distant Fourth
Keit Pentus-Rosimannus, until now in charge of Estonia's environmental affairs, has been promoted to lead the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but she was only a joint-fourth pick for ERR News readers in a poll.
Marina Kaljurand, the former Estonian ambassador in Washington and Moscow, and currently a Vice-Chancellor of the Minsitry of Foreign Affairs, gathered nearly 50 percent of the votes. Whether it is her apolitical and unblemished past, or sparkling public personality, it nevertheless won readers over.
Former EU Commissioner Siim Kallas and Estonian security expert Eerik-Niiles Kross were joint-second and third, with 20 percent each. Both were unlikely candidates for the post, as Kallas recently announced a departure from politics and would have declined, and Kross is too new in the mainstream politics, to have been a serious candidate. However, the names of both gentlemen have featured heavily in the news in the past twelve months, and both seem to have a following among the readers of ERR News.
The Foreign Minister position is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, ministerial job. For Toomas Hendrik Ilves (Foreign Minister between 1996 and 1998 and again from 1999 to 2002), Siim Kallas (between 1995 and 1996) and Lennart Meri (between 1990 and 1992), the job was the last stepping stone for top leadership nomination.