Politics
Kaplinski was a member of Riigikogu (the Estonian parliament) from 1992 to 1995. He was originally a candidate on the Centre Party list, but soon became an independent representative. Since 2004 he has been a member of the Estonian Social Democratic Party. In the 2005, the local government elections he ran in Tartu and was ESDP's first candidate in their list. Jaan Kaplinski was elected as the second Social Democrat candidate (Estonia is using open list system in local elections), collecting 1,045 votes. Jaan Kaplinski was one of those intellectuals who supported Toomas Hendrik Ilves' candidature.
Read more about this topic: Jaan Kaplinski
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country—and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.”
—Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)