Kersti Kaljulaid, who became president in 2016, decided not to run in the 2021 presidential election.

"Good politics has no home. Today, the Riigikogu is not a home for good politics. And if you're one of the players on the field, then everything you say is simply part of the competition. But if you're a little removed from the field, you have an opportunity to comment on the game. And it seems to me that Estonian politics needs people like that as well," Kaljulaid told ETV's "Ringvaade" when asked why she no longer wanted to run for president.

During the first half of 2021, Riigikogu President Jüri Ratas was discussed as a possible presidential candidate. In June, Ratas announced that he did not intend to run for president.

Kallas and Ratas first approach Jüri Raidla

In July, attorney Jüri Raidla acknowledged that Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and Riigikogu President Jüri Ratas had jointly asked him to run for president. Raidla turned down the proposal, saying the president should be competent in foreign policy, an area in which he lacked expert knowledge.

In August, Jüri Luik said that although several political parties had approached him about becoming a presidential candidate, he would stick to his earlier plan to leave domestic politics and take up the post of Estonia's ambassador to NATO in September.

Other names floated as possible candidates included Henn Põlluaas, Tarmo Soomere, Kaimar Karu, Indrek Laul and several others. Of these, Soomere was perhaps the most seriously considered. He met with four Riigikogu parliamentary groups: Isamaa, the Social Democratic Party, the Reform Party and the Center Party.

The leaders of those parties met on August 6, after which Jüri Ratas said Soomere did not have enough support in the Riigikogu to be elected president, which would require 68 votes in favor. Soomere's lack of political experience, particularly in foreign policy, was cited as a weakness.

On August 17, Alar Karis, then director of the Estonian National Museum, acknowledged that Center Party Chairman Jüri Ratas had asked him to consider running for president. In addition to the Center Party, the leaders of the Reform Party, Isamaa and the Social Democratic Party supported the proposal. At the time, Kaja Kallas' first government, a coalition of the Reform Party and the Center Party, was in office. A day later, Karis agreed to become a presidential candidate.

On August 27, the Reform Party and Center Party's 59 members of the Riigikogu formally nominated Karis for president. Under their agreement, they were to support Karis through the end of the Electoral College process.

Isamaa and the Social Democratic Party left the decision on how to vote up to each of their members. About half of the MPs in each party's parliamentary group supported Karis.

The Riigikogu convened to elect the president on August 30. Alar Karis received 63 votes in the first round, five short of the number needed to be elected. As many as 16 unmarked ballots were cast. EKRE's 19 MPs, as well as Siim Kallas and Helir-Valdor Seeder, who were hospitalized, did not collect ballots. One MP who collected a ballot also did not cast it.

It was believed that some of the blank ballots in the secret vote came from Isamaa MPs, with several also coming from the ranks of the Social Democrats.

A day later, on August 31, the second round of the presidential election was held in the Riigikogu. The number of unmarked ballots fell from 16 the previous day to eight. The number of votes in favor of Karis rose to 72, exceeding the minimum of 68 required. Alar Karis was elected president of Estonia.

The new president took office on October 11. Alar Karis was 63 when he became president.

In March this year, public trust in the presidency rose to 76 percent, its highest level in three years. A nationwide Emor survey commissioned by the Government Office found that support for the president increased among both ethnic Estonian respondents and respondents of other ethnic backgrounds.

Everyone keen to avoid repeat of 2016 fiasco

Erkki Keldo, the Reform Party's secretary general at the time, said that in 2021 there was a clear determination to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2016 when a president could not be elected by either the Riigikogu or the Electoral College and the Riigikogu ultimately agreed to elect Kersti Kaljulaid.

"There was a clear desire to try to find a candidate right away in the Riigikogu who would not be seen as the candidate of any particular party," Keldo said.

Keldo said that because the Reform Party and Center Party were in government at the time, the search for a presidential candidate was led primarily by the parties' then-leaders, Kaja Kallas and Jüri Ratas, as well as the chairs of their parliamentary groups.

Ratas: Cooperation with Kallas was smooth

Jüri Ratas recalled that his cooperation with Kaja Kallas went very smoothly. "I rate it very highly. The cooperation with Kaja Kallas was very good and based on trust, both in finding a presidential candidate and in negotiations with the Riigikogu parliamentary groups, so that was important," Ratas said.

According to Keldo, it was difficult to secure opposition support for many of the candidates. For example, it became clear that it would not be possible to muster the 68 votes needed for Tarmo Soomere.

Ratas, who was also president of the Riigikogu at the time, said that when he proposed Karis as a possible candidate to the party leaders, he encountered no opposition to Karis.

Lauri Läänemets, the current leader of the Social Democratic Party who was a member of the party's parliamentary group at the time, also said the Social Democrats had no reason to oppose Karis because they had no prospect of putting forward a candidate who could attract broad support. "Besides, Karis was a pretty good candidate and there was no point in playing any games," Läänemets said.

Keldo said it was also important that Karis was not associated with any political party. "Alar Karis' name had come up before as well. We also had people who had worked with Alar many times before in various positions. Alar's strength was that he had served multiple terms as a university rector, had been auditor general and at the time he was head of the Estonian National Museum. He had held a great many positions in public life. It was important that he was clearly impartial and not associated with anyone," Keldo said.

Helir-Valdor Seeder, who was Isamaa's leader and parliamentary group chair at the time, said that because the president had to unite people and provide balance, they naturally sought someone who was not affiliated with any political force.

But what might explain why Alar Karis failed to secure the required 68 votes in the first round? "Because the vote is secret, politicians, particularly those in opposition, often like to play around a little and see whether the coalition's votes will actually hold. Once they saw that enough votes had been cast and that the coalition's votes were holding, the opposition and others also came on board in the second round and duly voted him in," Keldo said.

Ratas said that by the second round, members of the Riigikogu had recognized their responsibility to elect the president in parliament. "I suppose that in the first round, some members of the Riigikogu still wanted to test things out, play around a little and make things more interesting, but I think a sense of responsibility brought enough votes behind Karis," Ratas added.

Ratas said that because they were confident Karis had sufficient support in the Riigikogu, they did not undertake more extensive efforts to secure the support of Electoral College members.

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