Word: lauristin
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Most Balts were rooting for Boris Yeltsin to win the Russian presidency. "During Yeltsin's campaign he backed our cause," says Marju Lauristin, head of the Estonian Social Democratic Party. "However, he was severely attacked for doing so, and even with his new mandate, there will continue to be political forces hostile...
...rarefied levels of real political power, three women in particular have emerged who may set the pattern for others to follow: Marju Lauristin, the deputy speaker of the Estonian parliament; Lithuanian Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene; and Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, parliamentary president of East Germany until the recent union of the two Germanys. Between them, Lauristin and Prunskiene have managed to place the Baltic struggle for independence high on the world's political agenda...
...nonsense Lauristin has parlayed her academic background in sociology into a sharp appreciation for the role of public opinion in postcommunist Estonia. She first dipped into politics in 1987 and learned her new craft chiefly by championing environmental issues, which have become a pivot for political rebellion, providing an entree into politics for a surprising number of East bloc women. In the spring of 1988 she became one of the founders of the rebellious Popular Front of Estonia, and her expertise in using the mass media helped propel the movement into a formidable force that convinced Estonians they could break...
Intellectually, Lauristin had long ago left doctrinaire communist ideas behind. In the late 1960s she attended the university at Tartu, where Western thinkers were widely studied. At the same time she set out to shed the unhappy legacy of her father, who in 1939 signed away Estonia's freedom to the Soviet Union. A statue of him honoring that deed still stands beside the newly constituted independent parliament in Tallinn. Now Lauristin is asking parliament to remove...
...parliamentary post, Lauristin operates from the inside. Rather than lead the debates, she more often wields her influence in drafting the new laws that will govern the country. "My work is to put our ideas into legislation," she says, "and it is often more important than leading the debate." Aided by a natural, direct manner and an air of honesty that works well on television, she is responsible for communicating the government's programs and ideas to the Estonian people...