Mart Siimann

Mart Siimann (born 21 September 1946) is an Estonian politician, broadcasting executive and sports administrator. He was Prime Minister of Estonia from 17 March 1997 to 25 March 1999, at the head of a minority coalition of the Coalition Party (Koonderakond) and the Country People's Union (Maarahva Ühendus), and president of the Estonian Olympic Committee from 2001 to 2012.

He was born in Kilingi-Nõmme. His family soon moved to Tartu, where he finished Tartu 5th Secondary School in 1965 and, in 1971, graduated from the University of Tartu as a philologist and psychologist. He then worked as a psychologist and deputy head of a labour-and-management laboratory and as a senior researcher at the university. From 1982 to 1987 he moved through editorial ranks at Estonian Television, directed Estonian Radio from 1987 to 1989, returned as director general of Estonian Television from 1989 to 1992, and from 1992 to 1995 was managing director of the private advertising channel Reklaamitelevisioon.

Elected to the Riigikogu in the spring of 1995, he chaired the Coalition Party's parliamentary faction. In February 1997, after Tiit Vähi's cabinet ended, President Lennart Meri nominated Siimann, then a deputy chairman of the Coalition Party, to form a government. The 40th government took office on 17 March 1997 and sat for 739 days, until 25 March 1999. In July 1997 the European Commission, in its Agenda 2000 communication, recommended that accession negotiations begin with Estonia together with Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Siimann left office when Mart Laar's coalition of Isamaa, the Estonian Reform Party and the Moderates was sworn in.

On 21 November 2001 a joint assembly of the Olympic Committee and the Estonian Sports Central Union elected him Olympic Committee president; he received 39 votes to Jüri Tamm's 13 from the Olympic Committee and 55 to 26 from the sports union. He remained in the post through the 2012 London Games and said he would not stand again; the committee's vice-president Neinar Seli and secretary general Toomas Tõnise were then discussed as possible successors.

Early life and education

Childhood and schooling

Mart Siimann was born on 21 September 1946 in Kilingi-Nõmme, in Pärnu County, in the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Biographical notices from the time he entered national politics say that his family soon settled in Tartu; they do not give his parents' names or occupations.

/nginx/o/2019/10/29/12697386t1h15b0.jpg) Tartu Tamme School on Tamme puiestee, the site occupied since 1964.

From 1954 to 1965 he was a pupil of Tartu 5th Secondary School (Tartu 5. Keskkool). The school, which traces itself to a primary school opened in the Veeriku suburb in 1919, states that in 1954 it was renamed Tartu 5th Secondary School, reorganized as a coeducational school, and oriented toward the natural sciences. For most of Siimann's years it stood at Näituse 20, in a building that had housed Mihhail Rostovtsev's private university and that by 2019 was used by the law faculty of the University of Tartu. A chemistry special class was formed in 1963, and on 1 September 1964 the whole school moved in procession to a new building at Tamme puiestee 24a in Tammelinn, so his final year was spent there. The school's own chronicle records him as a graduate of 1965. On 16 February 1995 the school was renamed Tartu Tamme Gymnasium; in August 2015 the upper-secondary part became a state gymnasium and moved to Nooruse 9, while the basic school remained at Tamme puiestee as Tartu Tamme School.

Irene Leisner taught Estonian language and literature at the school for 54 years and, by her own count, had 3,072 pupils, among them Siimann and the later prime minister Andrus Ansip. After her death in July 2015, Siimann called her one of his favourite teachers and a striking personality, whose lessons brought colour into the routine of school life and into what he described as the greyish order of the time. He said she taught not only literature but "life," a subject absent from the curriculum, and that some pupils, himself included, went on to study literature at university because of the attachment she created. He also said their contact continued for more than half a century after he left school, including meetings at jubilees and in Tartu cafés.

Studies at the University of Tartu

In 1965, the year he finished secondary school, Siimann entered the faculty of history and philology (ajaloo-keeleteaduskond) at Tartu State University (Tartu Riiklik Ülikool). He studied there until 1971, when he graduated as a philologist-psychologist (filoloog-psühholoog), a combined qualification in philology and psychology. On leaving university he became a psychologist and deputy head of the republican laboratory for the scientific organization of labour and management, the post that opened the research work he did before moving into broadcasting and, later, politics.

Academic work and broadcasting

Labour psychology and university research

Siimann completed a degree in philology and psychology in 1971 at Tartu State University (Tartu Riiklik Ülikool), now the University of Tartu. A February 1997 profile, published when he was asked to form a government, said that he then worked as a psychologist and deputy head of the republican laboratory for the scientific organisation of work and management. The Estonian Olympic Committee’s note places that employment, from 1971 to 1975, at the Laboratory of Work and Management and the Information Computing Centre (Informatsiooni-Arvutuskeskus), with the titles of psychologist, head of department and deputy head, and lists him from 1975 to 1982 as a senior researcher in the university’s philosophy department. The 1997 profile instead grouped 1971–1984 as his years as a university researcher and postgraduate student. In the late 1970s he also made the programme Tean, tahan, teen (“I know, I want, I do”) with Siim Kallas, Igor Gräzin, Peeter Sookruus and Hardo Aasmäe.

Estonian Television and Radio

Until the end of 1989, Eesti Televisioon (ETV) and Eesti Raadio belonged to the State Committee for Television and Radio of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, a union-republican body. Siimann joined ETV on 16 August 1982. The broadcaster’s chronicle describes the early posts as editor, presenter and editor-in-chief; the 1997 profile says that from 1982 to 1987 he rose from correspondent to deputy director general. In 1987 he moved to Eesti Raadio, a post that profile calls director general, and returned to television in 1989. From 1989 the committee’s radio side was headed by Peeter Sookruus, director general of the separated Eesti Raadio from 1990.

On 21 November 1989 Siimann was appointed first deputy chairman of the state committee, responsible for television. The institution around him was already being detached from Moscow. On 24 September 1989 ETV ended the obligatory relay of other organisations’ programmes, including Central Television’s Vremya; Aktuaalne kaamera had been at 21:00 since 16 March. On 27 December a decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet abolished the union-republican committee and created Eesti Ringhääling, answerable to the Estonian legislature. A statute of 23 February 1990 renamed ETV’s head a director, and on 21 June Siimann was confirmed as director general. From 1 October 1990 the published management had him as director general, Hagi Šein as deputy and development director, and Voldemar Lindström as deputy and organising director. ETV began 1991 as a separate organisation, and Eesti Raadio had in 1990 been placed under parliament rather than the government or the all-union committee.

During the August 1991 coup attempt, ETV’s chronicle records that people in Tallinn guarded the television and radio building, that a transmission unit was moved to Toompea so government information could still be sent, and that the sitting which restored Estonian independence was broadcast live on 20 August. On 21 August Soviet paratroopers tried to take the Tallinn TV Tower; the chronicle says the monitors in the apparatus room stayed on. Siimann later said he had been in Helsinki on the morning of 19 August, returned by ship that afternoon, and stayed in the building overnight once told that tanks were coming, comparing the choice to a captain remaining with the ship; he said an occupation the staff had prepared for did not occur.

The last year of his term combined cuts with a westward institutional turn. In June 1992 ETV reduced total output by about 20 percent, dropped morning programmes and cut its own production; 45 employees were dismissed on 1 July. In July ETV became an associate member of the European Broadcasting Union. On 5 October he resigned to the speaker of the Riigikogu, as the statute required. Šein, at ETV since 1967, was acting director general from 12 October, and on 12 December the Riigikogu elected him director general, with Herkki Haldre elected to head Eesti Raadio.

Private commercial television

He left for the company just given a privileged place in ETV’s advertising. On 7 February 1992 ETV’s television council decided on a 10 percent holding in Reklaamitelevisioon, then being formed. From 1 June, AS Reklaamitelevisioon (RTV) had the exclusive right to sell ETV’s advertising time, and on 21 September it began its own programme on ETV’s screen. Siimann was managing director from 1992 to 1995.

Andres Jõesaar’s study of Estonian media policy treats RTV as one of the first private licensees, not yet a fully separate channel. Of 15 television licences issued by the Ministry of Culture between May 1992 and January 1994, only five holders broadcast. In September 1992 licences went to AS Taska, later Kanal 2, to the Russian-language station Orsent, and to RTV (KU-20); EVTV, owned by AS Eesti Video, was licensed in May 1993. RTV first used ETV’s frequencies on Saturday and Sunday mornings. The model copied Finland, where Mainos-TV, later MTV Oy, sold advertising on the public broadcaster Yleisradio. ETV and Mainos-TV were two of ten founders, each with 10 percent, then the ceiling for a foreign holding, and RTV took a 15 percent commission. RTV and EVTV made more original programmes; Kanal 2 began as a film channel. After the 1994 Broadcasting Act voided the temporary licences, the two shared a network vacated by Moscow channels—RTV on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings—and ETV resumed selling its own advertising. In 1995 and 1996 the two companies merged into TV3, in practice owned by the Swedish group MTG. Siimann’s term ended in 1995, the year he was elected to the Riigikogu.

Entry into politics

Local government and party affiliations

Siimann’s first elected post was municipal. On 10 December 1989 he was returned from the Tõnismäe district to the Tallinn soviet of people’s deputies, the body then becoming the city council, in contested local elections in Estonia while Soviet institutions were still in place. A Postimees profile of 28 February 1997 stated that he had earlier been active in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in the association Vaba Eesti, and on the Tallinn City Council, without dates of party membership. On that council Vaba Eesti, an association of former communists, backed Lembit Linnupõld for mayor against the Popular Front’s Hardo Aasmäe, elected on 16 January 1990. New rural and city councils were chosen on 17 October 1993, the first local elections under the Constitution of Estonia.

He joined the Estonian Coalition Party (Eesti Koonderakond) in 1995 and by February 1997 was its deputy chairman. He later said that agreeing to form a government only two years after joining was difficult, because he was neither party chairman nor the winner of an election.

The Coalition Party in the Riigikogu

Elections to the VIII Riigikogu were held on 5 March 1995. Siimann stood in electoral district no. 2—central Tallinn (Kesklinn), Lasnamäe and Pirita—as candidate number 320 for the alliance Coalition Party and Rural Union (Koonderakond ja Maarahva Ühendus, KMÜ). He received 484 votes, not enough for a personal or district mandate, and entered on a compensation mandate with a comparative figure of 6,926.208. Tiit Vähi, number 319 on the same district list, received 5,942 votes and a district mandate.

KMÜ—the Coalition Party, Eesti Maaliit, Eesti Maarahva Erakond, Eesti Pensionäride ja Perede Liit and Põllumeeste Kogu—received 174,248 votes, 32.2 percent of 540,699 valid ballots, and 41 of 101 seats. Turnout was 545,801 of 791,988 registered voters, 68.9 percent. The partners sat separately. The Coalition Party faction was registered on 22 March 1995 with 18 members; Vähi chaired it until 17 April 1995, then Siimann, who had been a vice-chair. Postimees also placed him on the constitutional committee, and the faction record carries his chairmanship through 17 March 1997.

The premiership fell vacant from inside that faction. In February 1997 reports on Prime Minister Vähi revived transactions from 1992–1995: a house at Truuta in Pühajärve parish, and a 42-square-metre flat on Liivalaia Street declared uninhabitable, leased to his company Valga Group, reclassified as employer housing and privatized by his daughter. Jürgen Ligi of the Estonian Reform Party, vice-chair of a temporary Riigikogu anti-corruption committee, treated the disclosures as a question of whose interests the government served. A no-confidence vote on 11 February failed, 45 votes to 46. Vähi resigned to President Lennart Meri on 25 February nonetheless, after 702 days at the head of two successive coalitions.

The constitution allowed the president 14 days to name a candidate for prime minister. Meri moved sooner: on 27 February he designated Siimann, the presidential office saying other forces had wanted a quick decision. Siimann told Postimees the responsibility was his, that he would talk first inside the Coalition Party and with KMÜ’s 41 votes, and that he had 14 days to seek authorization from the Riigikogu. He left open a continued minority government, outside support, or a majority coalition. That evening Postimees judged a majority for authorizing him attainable, and an enlarged minority cabinet much harder.

Premiership

Formation of the minority government

Siimann became prime minister of Estonia after Tiit Vähi resigned on 25 February 1997. Vähi’s cabinet was already a KMÜ minority—the Coalition Party and Country People’s Union (Koonderakond ja Maarahva Ühendus) from the 1995 parliamentary election—and had been damaged by the apartment scandal. Lennart Meri nominated Siimann, the Coalition Party’s deputy chairman, on 27 February.

Siimann said he would talk first with KMÜ, which held 41 of 101 Riigikogu seats, and did not rule out a majority coalition. Postimees reported that a confidence vote might pass but that widening the minority government would be difficult. No new agreement was signed, though KMÜ’s rural wing wanted one; the cabinet kept the guidelines of 7 February 1997 and, from 11 June, an order of goals for 1997–1998.

On 12 March the Riigikogu authorised him by 72 votes to 13, with two abstentions, the largest such majority to that date. Äripäev counted, outside KMÜ, all nine Centre Party members and 12 of 19 Reform Party members present in favour, and the Pro Patria Union and the Moderates against. Reform still classed itself as opposition. The Centre faction did not oppose the government’s line, and Andra Veidemann of Arengupartei kept a ministerial post. The 72 votes were therefore support for a cabinet that remained a minority. Meri appointed it by decision No. 101 of 15 March. The 40th government took office on 17 March 1997 and served 739 days, until 25 March 1999. As candidate, Siimann said he would continue existing reforms, hold growth against social aims, and prefer able ministers to party labels.

Cabinet and domestic administration

The record lists Siimann as prime minister; Mait Klaassen (education); Paul Varul (justice); Andrus Öövel (defence); Villu Reiljan of the Estonian Country People’s Party (environment); Jaak Allik (culture); the non-party Jaak Leimann (economy); Andres Varik of the Country People’s Party (agriculture); Mart Opmann (finance); Tiiu Aro (social affairs); and the non-party Raivo Vare (transport and communications). Peep Aru, of the Coalition Party, became regional minister on 7 April 1997. Veidemann sat without a portfolio and, from 21 May 1997, as population minister.

Riivo Sinijärv was released as interior minister on 29 April 1997, officially for a transfer to the foreign service. Postimees reported that he had refused Siimann’s demand to propose the dismissal of chancellor Jaan Toots, required by law before the cabinet could remove a chancellor, after a dispute over private use of police cars. Robert Lepikson, sworn on 5 May 1997, was dismissed on 28 January 1998 for published attacks on colleagues, including Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Siimann said he had no complaint about the ministry’s work; Lepikson refused to resign and called the reason a pretext. Non-party banker Olari Taal was sworn in the next day.

Ilves served until 14 October 1998, when the non-party diplomat Raul Mälk replaced him. Ilves had resigned on 30 September, citing sniping and intrusion into foreign policy after he formed a party aligned with the opposition. European Union accession, NATO and relations with Russia are covered under Foreign policy.

Order No. 464-k of 11 June 1997 set growth of at least 4–5 per cent, inflation no higher than 10–12 per cent, a balanced budget, the currency board and a broad, low-rate tax base, with further goals on crime, pensions, health, land, housing, education and agriculture. It also opened an administrative reform for 1997–1999: central running costs frozen in 1998–1999 at the 1997 level, overlapping bodies merged, and agreement sought for a second stage of local-government reform in 1998–1999. On 25 September a ministers’ commission chaired by Siimann was told by Aru that a framework should be ready by 1 January 1998 and that no new agency was needed; State Secretary Uno Veering asked for a public discussion of civil-service ethics.

Economy, accidents and political criticism

On 11 September 1997, 14 Estonian soldiers died in a training exercise in the Kurkse strait. The cabinet accepted a commission report on 30 September: the deaths were a tragic combination of circumstances, but the Baltic Peacekeeping Battalion’s reconnaissance unit had attempted an unauthorised water crossing without judging the risk, training had not been supervised, and the rescue was poorly run. Chief of Defence Johannes Kert was found to have exceeded his authority in a 26 November 1996 agreement with his Latvian and Lithuanian counterparts, and civilian control was judged insufficient. The Estonian contingent was placed under national command at once.

On 16 September Öövel gave Siimann a resignation, writing that the minister’s lack of direct command did not remove indirect responsibility and that he would not accept peacetime exercises planned around losses. Siimann took the letter to the president that evening. The cabinet set aside 3.6 million kroons for the families and made 21 September a day of mourning. Öövel was not replaced: he is the only defence minister on the 40th government’s list.

In June 1998 Eesti Maapank, the sixth-largest bank with about 3 per cent of assets, failed after expanding into securities faster than its controls; equity turned negative on market losses, weaker loans and internal irregularities. On 28 June the Bank of Estonia rejected voluntary liquidation, because creditors could not be paid in full, and opened bankruptcy proceedings, withdrawing the licence from 29 June. It put the cost of the Deposit Guarantee Fund Act—up to 20,000 kroons and not more than 90 per cent of a deposit—at about 200 million kroons, and urged spending cuts and higher revenue rather than borrowing to cover state and local funds caught in the bank. On 9 June the cabinet, discussing blocked pensions, benefits and local advances, voted to ask the Riigikogu to compensate small depositors from a supplementary budget.

The Russian crisis of August 1998 then hit the budget separately. Real GDP growth fell from 11.4 per cent in 1997 to 4 per cent in 1998. Food exports, more than three-quarters of which went east, lost that market, and food-industry sales in the second half of 1998 were 21 per cent below a year earlier. Policy from late 1997 through mid-1998 had aimed at a general-government surplus of 2.5 per cent of GDP, saved in the Stabilisation Reserve Fund. In the second half of 1998 the government instead kept spending already planned, and the year ended in a deficit of 0.3 per cent of GDP, against a 2.0 per cent surplus in 1997, covered from earlier surpluses.

Critics treated the minority as a brake on structural decisions. In March 1997 an Õhtuleht commentary said the 72 votes hid a brittle balance—an apparent KMÜ–Reform–Centre understanding had already broken over the deputy speakers—and that delayed reforms and the 1998 budget could force an early election. In October 1998 the county governors wrote that mergers of police prefectures, the transfer of civil registries and the closure of county archives followed departmental interests rather than a prior decision on the number of counties, and that rebuilding them later would waste money. A spokesman said the letter would be taken into account. A Riigikogu journal later called the freeze on administrative costs one of the less realistic parts of a programme standing in for a coalition agreement the cabinet never signed.

Foreign policy

From 17 March 1997 to 25 March 1999, Mart Siimann’s government organised foreign policy around Estonia’s applications to the European Union and NATO, and around an effort to put relations with Russia on a fuller treaty basis. Neither accession was completed in office: Estonia joined NATO on 29 March 2004 and the European Union on 1 May 2004.

European Union accession

On 15 July 1997 the European Commission adopted its opinion on Estonia’s application within Agenda 2000. It found stable democratic institutions, a functioning market economy able in the medium term to cope with competitive pressure, and considerable progress on the single-market rules, while calling for faster naturalisation of Russian-speaking non-citizens, environmental investment and a stronger administration. It recommended that accession negotiations be opened. Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves said the recommendation was presented on 16 July, after which the government worked to have the member states confirm it.

The Luxembourg European Council of 12–13 December 1997 launched an accession process for the ten Central and Eastern European applicants and Cyprus. It decided to open negotiations in the spring of 1998 with Cyprus, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, and to speed preparations with Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria. Opening talks, it stated, did not mean they would finish together.

The Europe Agreement associating Estonia with the European Communities and their member states entered into force on 1 February 1998. Negotiations opened on 31 March 1998 with Ilves leading the delegation. He said Estonia would negotiate on the acquis, wanted screening finished that year, and gave particular weight to oil shale, agriculture, fisheries, the environment and early membership for Latvia and Lithuania. He resigned at the end of September 1998 after coalition partners questioned his loyalty once he founded a party aligned with the opposition. By 16 October Siimann was referring to the diplomat Raul Mälk as foreign minister.

NATO and defence

The Madrid summit of 8–9 July 1997 invited only the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland to begin NATO accession talks. The declaration reaffirmed that the Alliance remained open under Article 10 and recognised “the progress achieved towards greater stability and cooperation by the states in the Baltic region which are also aspiring members,” but it set no date and did not invite Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania. Ilves later called that outcome the most Estonia had hoped for in 1997. Preparation continued through the Partnership for Peace, whose Framework Document a NATO notice of 1 February 1994 said Estonia would sign on 3 February, and through the Planning and Review Process.

On 19 June 1998 Secretary General Javier Solana met Siimann at Toompea in Tallinn. Solana said NATO was open to Estonia. Siimann called membership the basic aim of security policy and said the government would raise defence appropriations in the next budget, stressing officer training and weapons compatible with NATO standards, while awaiting the 1999 Washington summit. Solana thanked Estonia for peacekeeping in Bosnia, said cooperation, language and leadership mattered more than the latest weapons, and added that a future security structure could not exclude Russia. On the World Bank series drawn from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, military expenditure was about 1.03 percent of GDP in 1997, 1.06 percent in 1998 and 1.28 percent in 1999.

Relations with Russia

The border treaties with Russia remained unsigned throughout the premiership. A text initialled in November 1996 had omitted any reference to the 1920 Treaty of Tartu and dropped a claim to the Petseri district, but Moscow continued to postpone signature, citing technical annexes and linking the treaty to questions about the Russian-speaking minority. On 12 February 1998, in an address the cabinet had approved, Ilves told the Riigikogu that Russia had lacked the will to sign in 1997 and that the government could wait, because “1997 proved that Estonia can achieve its foreign policy goals, regardless of whether it has or does not have a border agreement with the Russian Federation.” In June 1998 he said Estonia had done what it could, that the stalemate did not obstruct the EU talks, and that effort toward NATO should be redoubled with Latvia and Lithuania.

The working channel was a joint intergovernmental commission, with Siimann as Estonian co-chairman. On 23 December 1997 Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Avdeyev brought a message from Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, who named Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Sosuyev as Russian co-chairman and said the body should deal with real problems rather than become a debating club. Chernomyrdin called a border settlement important and indicated that agreements could follow once the documents were ready. Siimann said Estonia was ready to sign, treated minority questions as an internal matter, and noted that the cabinet would discuss integration of non-Estonians. On 3 December 1998 he received Deputy Prime Minister Valentina Matviyenko, by then the Russian co-chairman, at the commission’s meeting in Tallinn. Both called the work businesslike and pointed to draft agreements on trade, social affairs and technical cooperation. The border treaty was still unsigned when the government left office in March 1999.

Return to parliament

The 1999 election

On 1 November 1997, while prime minister, Siimann was elected chairman of the Estonian Coalition Party (Eesti Koonderakond), the only candidate, with 242 of 243 ballots; the board made Tallinn mayor Ivi Eenmaa his first deputy. He led the party into Estonia's Riigikogu election on 7 March 1999. Of 857,270 eligible citizens, 492,356 voted (57.4 percent), and 484,239 ballots were valid. The Estonian Centre Party won the most seats, 28, with 113,378 votes (23.4 percent); Edgar Savisaar had the largest personal vote, 14,320. The Pro Patria Union (Isamaaliit) won 18 seats on 77,917 votes (16.1 percent), the Estonian Reform Party 18 on 77,088 (15.9 percent) and the Moderates (Mõõdukad) 17 on 73,630 (15.2 percent). The Coalition Party took 36,692 votes (7.6 percent) and seven seats, the Estonian Country People's Party (Eesti Maarahva Erakond) 35,204 (7.3 percent) and seven, and the Estonian United People's Party 29,682 (6.1 percent) and six.

In 1995 both had stood on the Coalition Party and Rural Union list, which won 41 seats; in 1999 they stood apart. Siimann returned on 1,874 votes, a district mandate in electoral district no. 10 (Võru, Valga and Põlva counties). The Centre Party stayed in opposition. A cabinet of the Pro Patria Union, the Reform Party and the Moderates under Mart Laar took office on 25 March 1999, the day Siimann's government left. The IX Riigikogu, in authority from 14 March 1999 to 21 March 2003, first met on 18 March. Substitute Ants Leemets held Siimann's seat until 25 March; from 29 March Siimann sat and chaired the faction, still listed as its chairman in the February 2003 roster, after it fell from seven members to six when Eenmaa left on 26 October 1999.

Collapse of the Coalition Party

A compiled chronology of Estonian parties records Andrus Öövel as chairman from 2 May 1999 and Märt Kubo from 15 April 2000. On 15 November 2001 Kubo said the board would ask the congress to resolve "to end the activity of the Estonian Coalition Party": after Tiit Vähi and Siimann had stepped back, he said, the party had no leader able to contest the premiership, and continuing as a "pocket party" was pointless. He put the rolls at a little over 1,000 and said a merger was unrealistic under the two-thirds rule; some members might join Mõistuse ja Südamega ("With Reason and Heart") if it became a party, the People's Union of Estonia — the name the Country People's Party faction had taken on 19 October 1999 — the Reform Party, or Res Publica if that group became a party.

In September 2002 the faction's adviser told Eesti Ekspress that the party had announced its breakup in November 2001, that the Riigikogu had stopped its funding that May, and that the register entry was still pending; the six-member faction would sit out the term. The commercial register, which had entered the party as a non-profit on 30 October 1998, records deletion on 7 November 2002. It fielded no list at the election of 2 March 2003.

An association begun on Siimann's initiative, Mõistuse ja Südamega, was registered as an ordinary non-profit on 7 November 2001 and deleted on 5 May 2012. He cited a University of Tartu study finding that a fifth of the population was waiting for a new party, called the project social democratic, and named Jaan Kaplinski, Jaak Kangilaski, Rein Ruutsoo and Rein Veidemann among its supporters. He wanted a parliamentary party but said he would not force it into the next election if support was short.

On 1 November 2002 Siimann told the Estonian Olympic Committee that he had not stood in the local elections and would not stand for the Riigikogu in 2003, and that he would instead take a paid executive post at the committee, at 40,000 kroons a month, from January 2003 or after the parliament's term ended in March.

Sports administration

Presidency of the Estonian Olympic Committee

Before leading the national Olympic body, Mart Siimann was chairman of the Estonian Sports Association Kalev and, from 1999 to 2001, a vice-chairman of the Estonian Sports Central Union (Eesti Spordi Keskliit). He was a member of the Riigikogu when he stood for president of the Estonian Olympic Committee.

On 21 November 2001 the two organisations met at the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn; the sports register records that day as their union, with the committee carrying on the central union's continuity. Siimann defeated Jüri Tamm, a two-time Olympic bronze medallist in the hammer throw. The committee's voters gave Siimann 39 votes to Tamm's 13, and the central union's representatives 55 to 26. Tamm accepted an invitation to become a vice-president, with Andres Lipstok as the other, and Toomas Tõnise was the candidate for secretary general. Siimann succeeded Tiit Nuudi.

He did not leave parliament at once. He said that night that he had promised to end party activity, but that staying in the Riigikogu depended on the assembly and might help put sports questions before politicians. In late 2002 the assembly accepted a monthly presidential salary of 40,000 kroons, which he said he would draw from 1 January 2003 or after the sitting Riigikogu ended that March. He would not stand in the 2003 elections and would stay out of party politics while president. Nuudi had not been a paid executive, the vice-presidents were unpaid, and some board members had preferred 32,000 kroons plus a 25 per cent performance element.

An extraordinary general assembly re-elected him unopposed on 11 November 2004, with 86 votes from 99 members present; Lipstok and Tamm remained vice-presidents and Tõnise was returned as secretary general. Postimees likened the meeting to a Soviet-era party gathering: the only question was whether Siimann would return to politics within four years, and after he said no there was no debate of his suitability. The paper reported that skiing leader Toomas Savi opposed athletics leader Neinar Seli for a vice-presidency, fearing a funding tilt toward athletics; Savi then withdrew, while Seli said he had been ready to stand until the last moment. Lipstok, Seli and Savi were in the Estonian Reform Party, and some officials called Lipstok's everyday role barely visible.

On 10 November 2008 Siimann, again the only candidate, received 96 votes from 105, with nine ballots invalid. He nominated Savi and Seli as vice-presidents and the assembly approved them; Erki Nool and Tamm also stood and were not elected, while Tõnise stayed secretary general. In January 2012 he said he would not seek another term, due to end after the London 2012 Olympic Games, and called Seli and Tõnise good candidates without endorsing either. On 8 November 2012 the assembly elected Seli with 85 votes to 29 for Madis Kallas, from 117 ballots of which three were invalid; Kristina Šmigun-Vähi and Tõnise became vice-presidents. Days earlier Siimann told Estonian Public Broadcasting he was glad to hand over an organisation in order, with revenue above expenditure even through the crisis years, and that the next president's task was to keep working relationships intact.

Olympic participation and sports funding

Estonia won at least one medal at each of the six Games during the presidency; none of those editions was medal-less.

At the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City the tally was one gold, one silver and one bronze, all in cross-country skiing: Andrus Veerpalu took the gold and the silver, and Jaak Mae the bronze. Siimann asked the government to raise sport funding by 20 per cent a year for five years, through the culture, social-affairs, education and defence ministries. A supplementary budget lifted the committee's revenue from 18.9 million to 29.6 million kroons and expenditure to 31.8 million, which he linked to coach education, athletes' social guarantees, a doping passport and playgrounds built with local authorities.

At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Olympedia records no gold, one silver and two bronzes. The committee lists Jüri Jaanson's silver in the single sculls and Aleksander Tammert's bronze in the discus; Olympedia also records a heavyweight judo bronze for Indrek Pertelson. That November he told a sports forum that recreational sport needed a state programme and a commission chaired by the prime minister. He set the Culture Ministry's six million kroons a year over eight years, and ten million in the next budget, against 11 million for AIDS work and five million for alcoholism prevention, and cited a survey in which a tenth of Estonians exercised at least four times a week, against 46 per cent of Finns, while 45 per cent did no sport, against 11 per cent in Finland.

The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin produced three golds and nothing else, again in cross-country skiing: one for Veerpalu and two for Kristina Šmigun-Vähi. The 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing brought one gold and one silver and no bronze — Gerd Kanter in the discus, and Jaanson with Tõnu Endrekson in the double sculls — and the assembly later rated 47 athletes in 13 sports as having prepared and performed well. The 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver yielded only Šmigun-Vähi's cross-country silver. Before London, Siimann said one medal would be a great success, more than one a miracle, and none a failure. Estonia finished with Heiki Nabi's silver in Greco-Roman wrestling and Kanter's discus bronze.

Later sports roles

On 8 April 2016 the executive committee awarded Siimann its medal of merit, with rally driver Markko Märtin and swimming coach Õnne Pollisinski; the decoration, given since 2006, was to be presented on 15 April. The committee's roll records the 2016 award to him as honorary president.

Personal life and honours

Family

Siimann has said that he married while a student at the University of Tartu and that, by the age of 24, he was already the father of two sons. In a profile published on 28 February 1997, as he was nominated to form a government, Postimees described his first wife as a sports doctor, without giving her name, and his wife at that time as Maarika Saarna-Siimann, then the government's press representative. The same article said that the elder son was a television-station studio manager and the younger a director of financial markets at a bank, and that Siimann then had three grandsons.

By the mid-2000s he was living in the seaside village of Haapse, in Jõelähtme parish. In a March 2006 interview there he said that he and his wife were active Nordic walkers, and that for several years he had taken part in the local Kaberneeme club, including its beach clean-ups. A November 2008 profile in the same municipal paper, written after his re-election as president of the Estonian Olympic Committee, said that two sons and four grandsons regularly visited Haapse and that he and his wife preferred to leave the city for home at the end of a working day. Asked what he regarded as the high points of his life, he pointed not to the premiership but to children and grandchildren, love, and the satisfaction of writing something himself, and he said he looked forward to returning to books and perhaps setting his experience down for his descendants.

One grandson, the basketball coach Allan Siimann, said in February 2021 that his interest in sport had grown through his grandfather, whom he called a sports person. Allan Siimann, then 30, had just coached the Estonian women's national team and was seeking to continue as its head coach.

State decorations

The Office of the President's register records that Siimann, an Estonian citizen born in 1946, received the 2nd class of the Order of the National Coat of Arms (Riigivapi teenetemärk), series 123. Presidential decision No. 985 of 2 February 2001 describes the service as that of prime minister and member of the VIII and IX Riigikogu; the decoration was presented on 23 February 2001.

The same register of foreign decorations lists the 1st class, or Grand Cross (Storkors), of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit, dated 31 August 1998. That was the day Siimann, then prime minister, received King Harald V of Norway on Toompea. In 2016 the Estonian Olympic Committee gave him its medal of merit, which the committee describes as its highest recognition and confers once a year at the general assembly for distinguished work in the Olympic and sports movement. He was listed that year as an honorary president of the committee, together with the rally driver Markko Märtin and the swimming coach Õnne Pollisinski.