Died on Thursday at the age of 72 Edgar Savisaar was undeniably a big factor in Estonian politics – for good for some, for others bad: a generous father figure, a rhinoceros who trampled on others, or an agent who directly pushed Russia’s cause. Savisaari’s life and political story is as long-winded as his country’s recent history.
In the fall of 1987, Savisaar was involved in signing a newspaper article outlining economic freedom for Estonia by the President of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev in the space of movement allowed by the new policy.
The writing became one of the cornerstones of the movement called the People’s Front of Estonia, and Savisaari became one of the leaders of the movement at a time when independence still seemed like an impossible dream.
A new kind of Estonia was also being created Marju Lauristin commented on the role of Savisaari as crucial to the birth of a democratic Estonia. Without him, there would not have been the Baltic chain, Lauristin said when recalling Savisaara from the Estonian Broadcasting Company of ERR (you switch to another service) in the interview.
Lauristin is an emeritus professor of social policy at the University of Tartu and a long-time leading politician of the Social Democratic Party of Estonia.
– The role of Savisaari in Estonia’s re-independence can be compared Konstantin Pätsin role in Estonia’s independence after the First World War. But as a person and a politician, he was just as controversial as Päts. We didn’t call him Savipäts among ourselves for nothing.
Two million people participated in the Baltic chain, a giant demonstration organized in August 1989. The chain formed hand in hand stretched a distance of 600 kilometers from Tallinn through Riga to Vilnius.
According to Lauristin, Savisaarari had a unique ability to move large groups of people, but he was not the leader of daily politics.
– He didn’t want to take part in the democratic process that he found boring, that digs into small things and values others. He was authoritarian in nature, although not in worldview, and that had very unpleasant consequences for his fate, Lauristin said.
Savisaar was born in prison
Edgar Savisaar was born on May 31, 1950 in Harjunmaa province near Tallinn. The place of birth, Harku prison, where the mother served a sentence for “crimes against the state”, describes the Soviet era at that time. The father had received a 15-year prison sentence.
Savisaar grew up in Põlvamaa in southern Estonia. He studied history at the University of Tartu and after graduating, he first worked as a teacher in a secondary school and, after completing his doctorate, as a docent at the Academy of Sciences of the Estonian Soviet Republic.
When the word began to be released under Gorbachev, Savisaar also began to speak out about the need for social changes. He had already started politics as a student, and the new winds took him to the heart of it.
Savisaari became the last prime minister of the Soviet Republic of Estonia and then also the first of free Estonia in the same position, in the transitional government. This is how ‘s correspondent reports on those hopeful times Ulla-Maija Määttänen.
Savisaari’s term as prime minister lasted just under two years. Times were really bad financially. Food had to be put on cards, people waited in line for bread, and in winter preparations were made to evacuate residents from cold apartments.
Savisaar backed down when his proposal to declare a state of emergency was not accepted, but he had no intention of giving up politics.
When the activists of Kansanrintama split into parties to pursue the goals of the new society according to their own views, Savisaar founded the center party. The vote turnout in the 1992 parliamentary elections was impressive by the standards of that time. Savisaari became the deputy speaker of the parliament, or Riigikogu.
The wiretapping scandal cast a long shadow over Estonian politics
Savisaar returned to the government in 1995, this time as interior minister, but the ministerial stint ended even shorter than the previous one, already six months later.
The prime minister who represented the coalition party Tiit Least and the leader of the reform party Siim Kallasen the negotiations had been secretly recorded, and the traces of the eavesdropping seemed to lead to Savisaari.
He denied the allegations, and his assistant and later his third wife claimed responsibility Vilja Laanaru. The criminal investigation was stopped due to a lack of evidence, but the scandal sowed the seeds of long and deep suspicion between the center and the reform.
Laanaru became one of the center party’s most voted MPs and later an MEP when her husband did not accept the Brussels seat he had won. Estonia’s political turmoil is illustrated quite well by the fact that later, after leaving Savisaari, Laanaru joined the reform party.
Savisaar retreated from politics because of the sakolauntupukka, but again only for a few months. The municipal election victory gave him a leadership position in the Tallinn city council, and in 2001 he became the mayor of Tallinn.
Once again, Savisaar also held a ministerial portfolio, as Minister of Economy and Exports in 2005–2007. Then he returned as the “uncrowned king” of Tallinn, as Savisaari, who led the city with an absolute majority, was often said.
Victories in the elections, the road to Toompea is blocked
“I believe that soon, maybe sooner than we can imagine, the center party will be in government again. Then the chairman of the party won’t be left out either”, Savisaar predicted in the 2007 elections.
The prediction did not come true, as the other parties rejected cooperation with the center party and above all with Savisaari. As the winner of the municipal elections, the center was unbeatable in Tallinn, but under the leadership of Savisaari, it had no business in coalition governments.
Over time, Savisaari’s public image became more and more divided. In the parliamentary elections, he received more votes than anyone else, but at the same time, the other parties always evaluated him more gloomily. He was called a despot and a dictator and even a man who wanted to deliver Estonia into the arms of Russia.
According to the opponents, Savisaari’s connections to Russia brought black money to the city center’s coffers, and Tallinn’s political decisions were guided only by the interests of the city center. The most irritating thing in Estonia, plagued by the minority issue, was and still is that Russian-speakers vote for the centre.
Of course, it depends on the point of view, whether the construction of the Orthodox church in the predominantly Russian-speaking suburb of Lasnamäki was a reward for loyal voters or an important service for religious elderly people, and whether Tallinn’s free public transport is seen as a show of power from the center or as good local politics.
Bacterial infection took a leg and almost a life
In the spring of 2015, during a trip to Thailand, Savisaar got a scratch on his leg and it was attacked by flesh-eating bacteria, which caused a very serious infection. It was later reported that doctors had estimated that he had a 5-10 percent chance of surviving. The leg had to be amputated, but Savisaar recovered.
Already in the fall of the same year, he announced that it was not yet time to give up politics. He would be a candidate again in the center’s presidential election. There was a lot of chatter from the party, but it was still muffled. Even though corruption scandals were bubbling in his background, Savisaari’s loyalists did not see it possible to give up the long-term leader.
However, times were already changing. Corruption accusations led to Savisaar losing his position as the mayor of Tallinn, and new voices in the party also got stronger.
During the 2017 local elections, the paths of the city center and Savisaari diverged. Savisaar went to the elections as a candidate of the new electoral alliance, but still appeared confident of victory and announced that the electoral alliance would be the end of the center party.
The voters decided otherwise. The number one candidate in the center Mihhail Kõlvart got almost 25,000 votes, and four other people from the center also got ahead of Savisaari.
Even Savisaari lost the council seat with a good 3,600 votes, but the background troops had disappeared. A colorful and multi-generational career at the top of Estonian politics was over.
A member of the center until the end
Savisaar spent his last years quietly living in “Sudensilmä” in the province of Harjumaa, in Hundisilma’s house, and he rarely appeared in the media anymore.
When Maaleht (you switch to another service) interviewed him the other summer, he said he doesn’t see the need to fight anymore for something that has been going on for years. Times are different, problems are different, he said.
ERR’s Russian-language TV channel (you switch to another service) in an interview last year, he commented on all current parties in Estonia as weak. However, he never left the Center Party.
– I have thought about resigning, but I founded it, it’s my home, said Edgar Savisaar, sitting exhausted in a wheelchair.