The latest weekly survey conducted by Norstat on behalf of conservative think-tank the Institute of Social Studies found that the three opposition parties, Isamaa, the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) and the Center Party, combined have a support of 58.9 percent, compared with 36.6 percent of respondents who pledged for one of the three coalition parties – the Reform Party, the Social Democrats (SDE) or Eesti 200.

Undecided respondents made up the remainder.

By party, 29 percent of eligible voters pledged for Isamaa, 19 percent for EKRE while 17.2 percent said they support the Reform Party.

This represents no major change among the "top" three parties in recent weeks; Isamaa continues to hold a 10 percentage point lead over EKRE, and Reform lies 1.8 percentage points behind EKRE.

Next is SDE on 13.4 percent, the Center Party on 10.9 percent, and Eesti 200 with 6 percent, back above the 5 percent threshold needed to be passed, on election day, in order to win a seat.

Norstat conducts its polls on a weekly basis, aggregating them over the preceding four weeks.

The latest poll covers the period February 19 to March 18, during which time just over 4,000 Estonian citizens of voting age were quizzed.

Those without a party preference are excluded when calculating the relative support for the individual parties, in order to replicate as closely as possible a Riigikogu election day (when of course a "don't know" option is not available on a ballot sheet).

Norstat claims a margin of error in direct proportion to the size of a party by support, so, for instance the claimed margin of error with Isamaa, as the most-supported party (29 percent) is +/-1.66 percent, compared with +/-0.87 percent for Eesti 200, at present the least-supported of the six represented political parties.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!