Mart Helme

He served as Interior Minister in 2019-2020 and sits in the Riigikogu. He was EKRE's endorsed candidate for President of Estonia in the 2026 election but did not obtain the 21 parliamentary nominations required to stand.

Career

Helme served in the Estonian diplomatic service from 1994 to 1999, as ambassador to Russia from 1995. He was a member of the People's Union of Estonia from 2003 to 2005 and joined EKRE in 2012. He chaired the party from 2013 to 2020, sat in parliament from 2015 to 2019 and again from 2020, and was Minister of the Interior from 2019 until he resigned in November 2020. Wikipedia says the resignation followed criticism over his remarks about Joe Biden.

Positions

EKRE, the party Helme helped build, is described by Wikipedia as national-conservative and Eurosceptic. It opposes immigration from the Middle East and Africa, opposes same-sex marriage, wants Russian-language schools moved to Estonian and supports Swiss-style direct democracy, while backing NATO membership. His son Martin Helme has led the party since 2020, and Mart Helme is its deputy chairman.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. Wikipedia · Wikipedia · Wikipedia

Photo: Erik Peinar, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons (cropped)