Party ratings: EKRE support down slightly as Center's rises
The two opposition parties, the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) and the Center Party, have changed places in support trends compared with recent weeks, according to a recent survey. While EKRE's support has fallen slightly, Center's has seen a concomitant rise.
The survey, conducted on a weekly basis by pollsters Norstat on behalf of the Institute for Societal Studies (MTÜ Ühiskonnauuringute Instituut), found that 46.8 percent of respondents picked one of the three coalition parties – the Reform Party, the Social Democrats (SDE) or Isamaa – while 41.5 percent pledged their support for one of the two opposition parties, Center or EKRE.
The remainder either supported a non-parliamentary party or were undecided.
By party, Reform, the prime minister's party, was supported by 32.7 percent of respondents, EKRE by 25.5 percent and Center by 16 percent.
The non-parliamentary Eesti 200 party polled at 8.7 percent, Isamaa at 7.6 percent and SDE polled at 6.5 percent.
1.1 percent of respondents pledged their support for the Estonian Greens; 0.8 percent for the newly-formed Parempoolsed.
5 percent of the vote in any given constituency is required to win seats in any elections under Estonia's modified d'Hondt system of proportional representation.
Support for Reform has remained static in recent weeks, while EKRE's has fallen by 2 percentage points over the past five weeks.
Center's has risen by 2.8 percentage points over the last four weeks, albeit starting from a low reference base after the party reached a trough in support, in relation to its ranking since Norstat started conducting its polls in their current form, in early 2018.
The above figures would translate in terms of general election results into 36 Riigikogu seats from Reform (the party currently has 34), 28 seats for EKRE (currently on 19), 16 seats for Center (currently 26), seven seats for Isamaa (12) and six for SDE (10), with the remainder going to Eesti 200, which has yet to win seats at parliament.
The latest Norstat results aggregated the period October 26 to November 21 and polled just over 4,000 Estonian citizens of voting age.
Only Estonian citizens may vote in a general election; all residents may vote in local elections, and all EU citizens, in elections to the European Parliament.
Norstat claims a margin of error in proportion to the size of support for any party – for instance, Reform, with the largest support, has a margin of error of +/- 1.98 percent, Norstat says, compared with +/- 1.04 percent for SDE.
The general election takes place on March 5 2023.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Mait Ots
Source: Norstat
