[2] The current president is Alar Karis, elected by Parliament on 31 August 2021, replacing Kersti Kaljulaid.

[3] Estonia is one of the few parliamentary republics in which the president is a ceremonial figurehead without even nominal executive powers.

The functions that are usually vested on a president in parliamentary systems were divided among the speaker of the Riigikogu, the State Elder and the Government.

Within days after the Soviet military occupation of Estonia in June 1940, Päts was forced to appoint a Communist-dominated puppet government headed by Johannes Vares, following the arrival of demonstrators accompanied by Red Army troops with armored vehicles to the Presidential palace.

However, during times of war or incapacitation lasting longer than six months, the constitution provides for the election of an acting president by the Electoral Council.

In a secret meeting on 20 April 1944, the Electoral Council determined that the appointment of Vares as prime minister in 1940 had been unlawful according to the 1938 constitution.

The day before Uluots died in January 1945, a successor, August Rei, was named to assume the position of acting president.

Following Rei's death in 1963, the role passed to Aleksander Warma, then to Tõnis Kint in 1971, then to Heinrich Mark in 1990.

In October 1992, Mark handed over his credentials to the newly elected president of the restored republic, Lennart Meri.

In 2006, Toomas Hendrik Ilves won the election in the electoral assembly, and he was reelected by the parliament in 2011.