Party ratings: Reform Party support drops slightly on week
The Reform Party lost one percentage point in support over the past week, according to a recent party preferences survey. Reform remains the most-supported party, followed by the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), whose rating moved in the opposite direction over the past week as it gained close to one percentage point in support.
A total of 49.8 percent of respondents to the survey, conducted by pollsters Norstat on behalf of conservative think-tank the Institute for Societal Studies (MTÜ Ühiskonnauuringute Instituut), pledged their support for one of the three coalition parties – Reform, Isamaa or the Social Democrats (SDE), while 38.1 percent expressed support for either of the two opposition parties, EKRE and Center (the remainder either supported a non-parliamentary party or answered "don't know").
For the coalition, the rating represents thee first time it dipped below the 50-percent mark, since taking office in July.
By party, Reform picked up 33.5 percent of support, almost identical to its number of Riigikogu seats (34, out of 101).
EKRE polled at 21.8 percent (the party has 21 seats), while Center received 16.3 percent of support – some way below the 26 seats it holds.
A newcomer was for the first time also added to the selection presented by Norstat – the Parempoolsed, just incorporated as a political party around a core of ex-Isamaa dissenters – and, while it is too early to state their exact rating per Norstat (which aggregates its results over a four-week period), for this first week, the party polled at 0.9 percent.
Reform as noted saw a fall of one percentage point in support over the past week, while EKRE's rose by 0.8 percent over the same time-frame, and is now two percentage points higher than it was at the start of the month.
Center's support remains static.
The "top three" are followed, according to Norstat, by non-parliamentary party Eesti 200 (9.1 percent), SDE (8.3 percent) and Isamaa (8 percent). The three parties have been playing support-musical-chairs in recent weeks, though Eesti 200's support since early 2022 has seen a trend towards a fall.
SDE has 10 Riigikogu seats, Isamaa, 12.
The latest Norstat results reflect the period July 25 to August 22. A total of 4,001 Estonian citizens of voting age were polled, using both 'phone and online methods.
Norstat claims an error margin relating to the size of the party's overall support – for instance the error margin for Reform (+/- 1.47 percent) is higher than that for Isamaa (+/- 0.84 percent).
The next elections are to the Riigikogu, March 5 2023.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
