Ex-communist to be Estonia leader

TALLINN, Estonia -- Former communist Arnold Ruutel has been chosen as Estonia's second post-Soviet president by the country's electoral college.

Ruutel, who will now lead Estonia into the European Union and NATO, topped the ballot with 186 votes, two more than he needed to win the contest, electoral commission head Heiki Sibul told the assembly.

The 73-year-old, leader of the leftist opposition, was the chairman of Estonia's Supreme Soviet legislature when the country regained independence from Moscow in 1991 and is a former member of the central committee of Estonia's Soviet-era communist party.

Ruutel, who will replace the popular Lennart Meri, won in a run-off with Parliament Speaker Toomas Savi of the centre-right Reform Party after an earlier ballot failed to give any of four candidates a majority.

Leftist opposition leader Arnold Ruutel, 73, and Parliament Speaker Toomas Savi of the centre-right Reform Party, 58, drew the most support, with the 367-seat body set to choose between them later on Friday.

In the first ballot, Ruutel received 114 votes while Savi got 90 from the 367-seat college.

Peeter Tulviste, 55, a former university rector from the centre-right Pro Patria party, and Peeter Kreitzberg, 52, of the leftist Centre Party, dropped out of the race at that stage.

Meri was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, and there was a stalemate in parliament last month over choosing a new president -- sparking the long drawn-out selection process.

Only a simple majority was required in the electoral assembly -- made up of 101 parliamentarians and 266 local government delegates.

There was little difference between the candidates on the Pro-Western nation's objectives of European Union and NATO membership, though the left-of-centre candidates argued that too much time is spent on European integration and not enough on domestic social problems.

Meri, an intellectual former writer and anthropologist credited with bringing pro-Western reforms to Estonia, was elected in 1992 and again in 1996. He leaves office on October 7.