Center Party Maintains Towering Lead With 3 Months to Go Until Local Elections
The Center Party would have a solid plurality - with 16 percentage points more support than its closest rival - if October's local elections were held today, this month's Emor poll commissioned by ERR found.
The Center Party had 29 percent of voters' support, followed by Reform Party with 13 percent, and 10 percent each for the IRL and Social Democrats. Eleven percent would vote for an individual candidate and 24 percent for an election union.
"The same situation was seen in the last elections as well," Tõnis Saarts, a political scientist from Tallinn University, said on ETV. "The result for the last elections was that Center had 30 percent support and Reform came next with 16 percent."
TNS Emor's expert Aivar Voog said that the current results were not very comprehensive as the names of individual candidates were not known yet.
"The specific individual candidates will play a larger role here. Larger parties are on a very weak footing, as local election unions will play a very big role."
The names of the Tallinn mayoral candidates have already been announced though, and the Center enjoys a massive lead in the capital - 46 percent, against 14 percent for IRL, 13 percent for Reform and 9 percent for the Social Democrats.
Saarts said the chances of Center getting an outright majority of votes was "fairly high."
The Center Party is only fourth among ethnically Estonian voters, with nine percent. It is backed by 72 percent of voters of other ethnicities. Tallinn is roughly 55 percent ethnically Estonian. Unlike general elections, non-citizens can vote in the October local elections.