Party ratings: Center Party support reaches nadir
While support for the coalition Reform Party has fallen in recent weeks, the opposition Center Party is at its lowest since early 2019, according to a recent survey.
Meanwhile support for the opposition Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) has risen lately, according to the results of a survey conducted by pollsters Norstat, on behalf of conservative think-tank the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues (MTÜ Ühiskonnauuringute Instituut).
A total of 48.5 percent of respondents to the survey backed one of the three coalition parties – Reform, Isamaa or the Social Democrats (SDE), and 38.4 percent opted for one of the two opposition parties, EKRE or Center. Respondents who pledegd for a non-parliamentary party or who were undecided made up the remainder.
By party, Reform remains the most-supported at 32.1 percent, followed by EKRE on 23.3 percent and Center on 15.1 percent, according to Norstat.
As noted Reform's support has fallen, by 2.4 percentage points in the past three weeks, while EKRE's has been moving in the counter-direction for the past month-and-a-half, and is now 4.1 percentage points higher than its rating at the end of July.
Center's support is at its lowest level since Norstat began compiling its weeklys surveys in their current format, in early 2019.
The "top" three are followed by the non-parliamentary Eesti 200 party on 9.5 percent, Isamaa on 8.5 percent and SDE on 7.9 percent. There have been no major changes in terms of support for these three parties of late, though they have alternated places among each other in recent weeks.
The Estonian Greens, who also currently have no Riigikogu seats, polled at 1.9 percent.
Figures for two other registered political parties, TULE, which was formed out of a merger of the former Free Party and Richness of Life party, and the Parempoolsed, which only recently incorporated, were not reported.
The graph below shows the relative changes in party support since early 2019 (Key: Yellow = Reform, green = Center, black = EKRE, royal blue = Isamaa, red = SDE, light blue = Eesti 200, light green = Estonian Greens).
The latest four-week aggregate results cover the period August 16 to September 12, and just over 4,000 Estonian citizens of voting age were polled.
The next elections are to the Riigikogu, on March 5 2023.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
Source: Norstat
