Pentus-Rosimannus still thinks Kaljurand best presidential candidate
Former minister of foreign affairs and current Reform Party MP Keit Pentus-Rosimannus sided with Marina Kaljurand in Tuesday’s leadership meeting, where her party eventually decided it would support Siim Kallas in the upcoming election in the electoral college next month.
“I’ve been asked if yesterday’s marathon meeting changed my conviction that Marina Kaljurand would be a good president for Estonia. My conviction hasn’t changed, I still think that considering the future, Marina Kaljurand would be the best president for Estonia as well as the frontrunner in the electoral college, and I defended this position in the leadership meeting. Several members of the parliamentary group that aren’t part of the leadership did the same,” Pentus-Rosimannus wrote on social media.
Pentus-Rosimannus explained that she didn’t consider it the right thing to do to ignore a candidate with Kaljurand’s ability to speak to the people, inspire, and bring very different groups of society together. Kaljurand was a charismatic representative of Estonia’s interests abroad as well as someone who stood up for law and justice in the Estonian society, she added.
About the decision to support Kallas, Pentus-Rosimannus said that she could only wish its supporters luck, as in trying times the next president would need more than the support of individual groups and the elite.
Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas (Reform) dismissed Kaljurand’s popularity with the people in his interview with ERR’s TV news on Tuesday saying that in the electoral college, popularity with the voters was difficult to estimate, and that the party should concentrate on getting the candidate with the broadest cross-party support elected.
Editor: Editor: Dario Cavegn