Mart Laar - Career

Career

Mart Laar was born in Viljandi. He studied history at the University of Tartu, graduating in 1983; he received his Master's degree in philosophy and his doctorate in history in 2005. Laar taught history in Tallinn, and served as president of the Council of Historians of the Foundation of the Estonia Inheritance, the Society for the Preservation of Estonian History, and the Estonian Students' Society. Laar has written many books on Estonian and Soviet history, among them War in the Woods: Estonia's Struggle for Survival, 1944–1956, a book about the Forest Brothers anti-Soviet resistance movement.

Laar's political career began when he became a member of the conservative Pro Patria Union party (which later merged with the more technocratic Res Publica Party in 2006). He was elected prime minister by the Riigikogu on 21 October 1992, launching what were perhaps the most thorough economic reforms in the post-Soviet space.

In the 1994 no-confidence vote Laar lost the office due to several scandals after which some members of the coalition withdrew their support to the Prime minister. The scandals included the aspects of an arms deal contract with Israel; disagreements about political allies in the opposition, and the sale of banknotes in the amount of 2.3 billion Soviet rubles, withdrawn from circulation during the Estonian monetary reform of 1992, to the breakaway Chechen Republic of Ichkeria by Laar's associates at an Estonian company, Maag, which was done without consulting the Estonian Parliament.

Five years later, in 1999, Laar returned to the post, with his main policy goals being to pull the economy out of a slump and lead the country toward the European Union. He remained in the post until he stepped down in 2002.