Party ratings: Support for coalition fallen since January
Support for the current Reform/Center coalition has fallen since the beginning of the year, when the pairing entered office, according to a recent survey. Around half of respondents expressed criticism both of the government's performance, and of that of Prime Minister Kaja Kallas (Reform).
The survey, conducted by pollsters Norstat on behalf of the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (MTÜ Ühiskonnauuringute Instituut), listed five theoretical coalition alignments.
Most popular of the options presented was the Reform/Isamaa/SDE coalition, backed by 26 percent of respondents.
This line-up was in actuality last in office 2015-2016.
The current bi-partisan coalition of Reform and Center was just behind on 24 percent. At the beginning of the year, the figure backing this line-up was 35 percent. The Reform/Center coalition entered office in late-January.
An option featuring a coalition of Center/EKRE/Isamaa, in reality in office April 2018 to January this year, was backed by 18 percent of respondents.
No other options picked up double-figure support ratings: A Center/EKRE/SDE lineup was backed by six percent of respondents; a putative Reform/EKRE coalition by even fewer, at 5 percent.
The Social Democratic Party (SDE) and Reform are both, based on their pronouncements, socially liberal parties and on this at the opposite end of the spectrum from the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE).
Twenty-two percent of respondents expressed no opinion on any of the proposed coalition lineups.
Respondents to the survey were in addition asked their opinion on how well the current government is doing its job, with 51 percent saying it was doing so very poorly to somewhat poorly. Forty-three percent by contrast picked "quite well" to "very well". Seven percent had no opinion.
Rating the current prime minister, Kaja Kallas (Reform), 50 percent said they "disapproved" of her performance, 32 percent "approved" and 18 percent had no opinion.
The snap survey was conducted online only, October 7-8, polled a thousand Estonian citizens aged 18 or over, while Norstat claims a +/- 3.1 percent margin of error.
--
Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!
Editor: Andrew Whyte