Mart Helme

Mart Helme MP
Leader of the Conservative People's Party
Incumbent
Assumed office 13 April 2013
Preceded by	Margo Miljand
Estonian Ambassador to Russia
In office 1995–1999
President	Lennart Meri
Preceded by	Jüri Kahn
Succeeded by	Tiit Matsulevitš
Personal details
Born	(1949-10-31) 31 October 1949 (age 74) Pärnu, Estonia
Political party	Conservative People's Party (2012–present) People's Union (2003–2005) Res Publica Party (2002)
Alma mater	University of Tartu

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Mart Helme (born 31 October 1949) is an Estonian politician and chairman of the national conservative Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) since 13 April 2013. A historian by profession, he also served as Estonia's ambassador to Russia from 1995 to 1999.

He has worked as a journalist, publisher and diplomat.^[1] He has also been a farmer and a singer.

He owns Suure-Lähtru manor.

Mart Helme was born on 31 October 1949 in Pärnu. His father was a veteran of the Estonian Legion. He later said that listening to his father's stories about fighting on the Eastern Front made him an Estonian patriot despite being raised in the Soviet Union.^[2]

After graduating from high school in Pärnu in 1968, he studied history at the University of Tartu and graduated in 1973.

In his youth, Helme played in several bands.

Helme joined the Estonian diplomatic service in 1994. In 1995, he was appointed as the Estonian ambassador to Russia by President Lennart Meri. His tenure lasted until 1999. While in Moscow, he took part in the border negotiations with Russia.

From 2003 to 2005, Helme was a member of the agrarian-centrist People's Union of Estonia. In 2012, when the party merged with the Estonian Patriotic Movement, Helme became a member of the new Conservative People's Party of Estonia. A year later, he was elected its leader.

He has said that "Estonian politicians should honestly admit that our choice is between staying with those who are creating a United States of Europe and joining those who desire a Europe of nation states. The Conservative People's Party doesn't see a place for Estonia in a United States of Europe."^[3]

In 2015 parliamentary election, Helme was elected to parliament with 6,714 individual votes^[4] and in the 2019 parliamentary election he increased his support to 9,170 individual votes.

Politician and journalist Martin Helme is his son.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mart Helme.

• Suure-Lähtru manor