Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who was sworn as president of Estonia wearing his trademark bow tie, has vowed to help European Union newcomer Estonia leave behind the legacy of its Soviet past and look resolutely to the future.

A Social-Democratic member of the European parliament since 2004, the year Estonia joined the EU, Ilves was last month elected president of this small Baltic state of 1.3 million people, winning 174 votes of the 345-member electoral college.

He beat outgoing president Arnold Ruutel by 12 votes.

Born in Sweden to parents who fled the 1940 Soviet occupation of Estonia, Ilves, who has spent the better part of his life in the United States, Canada, and Germany, is the first Baltic head of state to be born in exile.

With the 52-year-old taking office in Estonia, all three Baltic states now have presidents who spent the long Soviet occupation of their countries in exile in the West.

Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga was born in Riga but spent the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, which ended in 1991, in Germany, Morocco and Canada.

And Lithuania's head of state, Valdas Adamkus, was born in Kaunas but fled the Soviet occupation and lived for more than 50 years in the United States.

The foreign policies of the three countries have been openly pro-Western since they broke free of Soviet rule.

In his election campaign, Ilves, whose background is firmly rooted in foreign affairs -- a subject he counts among his hobbies -- said he would make foreign policy and Estonia's international representation a key point of his presidency.

But during his five-year term in office he will also have to deal with domestic issues in a country that is still struggling to come to terms with its Soviet past.

"In the next five years, we have to hand over to the first generation raised in the new, independent Estonia, a state that looks and behaves as if there was never an occupation," Ilves said in his acceptance speech.

Despite rapid economic growth since gaining independence from Moscow in 1991, deep divisions remain among Estonia's haves -- usually city-dwellers who have embraced reforms -- and have-nots, who mainly live in the countryside and are sentimental for the communist era.

Ethnic divisions still linger, too, largely born of the mass deportations of Estonians to Siberia carried out at the start of the Soviet occupation and fueled by the subsequent influx of Russians to Estonia, as Moscow set out to "russify" the Baltics.

Ilves himself serves as an example to the young, having returned from exile to help democracy take root in his newly independent country.

In 1993, two years after Estonia regained independence from Moscow, he gave up his US citizenship and became Tallinn's ambassador to Washington.

Soon after, he became foreign minister, helping to guide Estonia through tough membership negotiations with the EU and NATO.

In 2004, Estonia was accepted into both organisations, creating a new security framework for a country that had been in the Kremlin's orbit for five decades.

Ilves, who is fluent in English, German and Spanish in addition to his native Estonian -- which he speaks with a slight accent -- in 2004 was elected in a landslide victory to the European parliament, where he held the post of first vice-president of the foreign affairs committee.

Estonia's new president has a penchant for bow ties and can often be seen chewing gum, even during public appearances.

"I warmly recommend Nicorette products to anyone who wants to quit smoking," he has said.

Assuming the presidency means that Ilves will have to cut back on the time he spends restoring an old family farm in the rural depths of southern Estonia.

Ilves has a three-year-old daughter with his present wife, Evelin, and two other children from a previous marriage, a boy born in 1987 and a girl born in 1992.