Indrek Tarand

He studied history at the University of Tartu, as well as the University of Bologna, Italy. As a student during the Soviet occupation, he was expelled in his first year for lighting candles with his fellow Estonian patriots on the grave of Julius Kuperjanov, an Estonian military commander. Tarand was forced to the Soviet military service and after that he finished the university in 1991.

In 2005, Tarand caused a scandal at a soccer game by wearing a shirt that bore the names of some former Communist Party members, including Estonian president Arnold Rüütel and Prime Minister Andrus Ansip with the words Kommarid ahju! ("Commies to the oven!") This was one of the reasons that caused defense minister Jaak Jõerüüt to resign.

In 2006, Tarand participated as a celebrity contestant on the first season of Tantsud tähtedega, an Estonian version of Dancing with the Stars. His professional dancing partner was Kaisa Oja.

For the elections for the European Parliament (EP) in June 2009 he stood as an independent candidate and received 102.460 votes (25.81%) in Estonia, which placed him on a surprising second rank after the Estonian Centre Party (KE, Eesti Keskerakond) with 103.506 votes (26.07%). He joined the political group of the Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/ALE). During this legislature 2009-2014 he became member (either as full member or as substitute member) of the following committees and delegations:

In 2010, together with the other MEPs Guy Verhofstadt, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Sylvie Goulard and Isabelle Durant, Andrew Duff and Jo Leinen, he became member of the Spinelli Group, in order to inject a federalist momentum into the political decisions and policies of the EU. The aim is to be a network of citizens, politicians, academics and writers who are convinced it is time for Europe to move forward. His surprising success in 2009 tempted fifteen other individuals to follow his example and to stand as independent candidate for the elections for the European Parliament in May 2014. Indrek Tarand stood again as an independent candidate, got more votes than all the other independent candidates together and was with 43.369 votes (13.2%) reelected. http://ep2014.vvk.ee/voting-results-en.html He stayed member of the political group of the Greens/European Free Alliance. For his second legislature he became member (either as full member or as substitute member) of the following committees and delegations:

In 2011, Tarand ran in the indirect presidential election of Estonia against Toomas Hendrik Ilves. His candidacy was supported by the Centre Party, while the other three parliamentary parties backed Ilves. Tarand received 25 votes in the Riigikogu against Ilves's 73.