Martin Helme: Presidential election issue becoming increasingly embarrassing

TALLINN - The issue of the presidential election is becoming increasingly embarrassing, according to Martin Helme, chairman of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), reports the daily Postimees.

The team behind the Opinion Festival (Arvamusfestival) has had to cancel a debate for presidential candidates because potential participants refused to attend. According to Helme, this demonstrates that just three weeks before the presidential election, there is only one real candidate.

"This whole business of our presidential 'elections' is getting more and more embarrassing. Since spring, the well-known leftist state 'civic initiative', a.k.a. the Opinion Festival, has been planning a debate for presidential candidates," Helme remarked.

The Riigikogu is scheduled to elect the president in three weeks. The Opinion Festival would have been an opportunity to explain one's worldview to the public. However, it was announced today that the event is canceled because candidates refused to participate. Only EKRE's presidential candidate, Mart Helme, remained on the list of participants.

"It's a rather embarrassing story that besides Mart Helme from EKRE, we don't really seem to have any other candidates. Some self-proclaimed, knock-off candidates started demanding from the organizers that they would agree to participate in the debate only if non-candidate Ülle Madise also came. But what Kristina Kallas, Kristen Michal, and Lauri Läänemets can't achieve together, the feeble Opinion Festival can't either - Madise is not a candidate and will not debate," Helme remarked. "She is only willing to run if she is guaranteed the necessary number of votes and assured that she won't have to debate anyone," the EKRE chairman stressed.

"On one hand, how can you just cancel an announced debate? The purple-haired, genderless, tote-bag-dragging crowd was so looking forward to this showdown! What's worse, by canceling the debate, you essentially admit that just three weeks before the 'elections,' there is only one real candidate. All the others are either phantoms, pipe dreams, or somewhat baffling projects of self-admiration and self-promotion. But on the other hand, you get it, don't you: how can you possibly organize a media event right before the election where basically only the EKRE candidate is on stage? Because even though you could rework it into a cool one-on-one interview, that was never the purpose of the Opinion Festival to begin with," Helme noted.

"On a broader scale, this whole little episode speaks volumes about how poor our presidential election system is, and even more so, how incompetent the organizers-the political mainstream-are. They've been at this all spring and summer, only to arrive at a point where they absolutely refuse to support Mart Helme, yet there's no one else. What a predicament!"