According to The Economist, there are only two interesting heads of state in post-Communist Europe, and Estonia has one of them. (The other is Russia's Vladimir Putin.) Labelled 'brainy' and well-travelled, Toomas Hendrik Ilves is seemingly elevated to the ranks of much better known senior statesmen Lech Walesa of Poland and Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic (but interestingly, not Estonia's former president, the late Lennart Meri). Perhaps he will attain the same status in time. He probably deserves to.
The article is ostensibly about the newly elected Latvian president, Dr Valdis Zatlers, whom the unidenitified author portrays as "an orthopaedic surgeon [who] admits collecting thousands of dollars in tips from grateful patients, on which he is now hurrying to pay tax" whilst decrying the fact that he doesn't even hold a wick, let alone a candle, to the country's outgoing leader, Vaire Vike-Freiberga, "a steely-minded émigré polyglot". He (for I am assuming the author is a he) clearly holds the multilingual in great stead. Especially those lucky enough to have been raised and educated in the West.
Not that I'd begin to argue the point. Toomas Hendrik Ilves' outright victory in the funny handshakes round of the presidential election last year - something no one was really predicting - was the most enthralling edge-of-your-seat television since Turkey won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2003 with the second last set of points from Slovenia. I hadn't been so chuffed about anything in Estonia in a long time. I actually jumped up and down, cheering madly. (Much as I had when Turkey won Eurovision.)
There's good reason for this, of course: he's the best thing to happen to the Estonian political scene in a long time. The president may only be a figurehead in this country, but with Ilves at the helm, there's no 'only' about it. And when you ponder the alternative, and look at other examples around Europe... well, take Poland, for instance. The writer from The Economist says its "ruling twins are refreshingly honest, but prickly and provincial". I'm sorry, but if you ask me, there's something fundamentally wrong about having two brothers as president and prime minister. Especially twins. And it's not exactly like they (or, by extension, their government) have made a name for themselves recently with their progressive attitude.
Fair dos, the article does single them (and others) out as exceptions. "A lot more typical," it continues, "are such political leaders as Slovakia's prime minister, Robert Fico, or Hungary's Ferenc Gyurcsany: wily political operators with [...] a populist touch. They show little interest in restarting reforms or in foreign policy." The irony is that these couple of lines could just as easily describe Estonia's prime minister, Andrus Ansip - who is head of the Reform Party. I'm not aware of any use for laurels other than to be rested on, and sadly, neither is the country's recently re-elected government. But again, given the alternative...
Thank goodness we have Toomas Hendrik Ilves at the tiller.
Oh, I almost forgot: tha article naturally also gets the thumbs up for being entitled Doctor Who?
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