TALLINN - The country's leading dailies were full of editorials this week over the president's Independence Day speech, nearly all of which struggled to decipher whether Arnold Ruutel's would seek a second presidential term this fall.
As regards the message of the speech, Eesti Paevaleht and Postimees were by and large antagonistic in their opinions.
According to the editorial article of Postimees, the president could have started his speech, delivered at the Estonia Theater before officials, diplomats and public figures, with a remark that this Independence Day speech would be his last as head of state.
"Those who awaited even the vaguest clue about the prospect of Ruutel's running for a second term had to feel disappointment," the paper said.
Postimees argued that, on the one hand it was good that the president didn't turn the national anniversary into his own farewell party. He resisted putting his own choices on a par with problems of the state, the paper said. However, his ability to work and his understanding of today's world were increasingly becoming a problem for the nation, the editorial concluded.
Eesti Paevaleht opined that the Feb. 24 speech failed to bring a message that a large part of the public had expected from the president's New Year's speech.
When it came to the content of the president's speech, the newspapers offered widely differing evaluations.
The Postimees found the speech hollow. It contrasted the president's address with the words of Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, delivered on the same occasion at the Vanemuine Hall in Tartu the previous evening. During the PM's speech, he said it was Estonia's goal to win a place among the five richest nations in Europe.
"It is my firm conviction that the people of Estonia have been working already for years to attain two almost unattainable goals 's namely to ensure the continued existence of Estonians and to become a rich European nation," the prime minister said.
"Whether one likes this goal or not, it is definitely better than the impression left by the president's speech - that the Estonian state had lost its direction," the paper said.
Eesti Paevaleht saw the president's speech this year as extraordinarily bright and looking to the future. The paper said the speech was centered on a vision of the future and sought to offer a new big vision after the previous major goals of membership in the EU and NATO had been attained.
"In essence, the message of Ruutel's speech was similar to that set out in the anniversary speech by Ansip 's to endure and to become rich," it said
