"I believe [Ansip] is a skilled enough politician that he heeded the polls that didn't indicate very much support for him," Kallas told ERR at Kadriorg on Monday morning.

Commenting on the former longtime party chair and PM's statements in an appearance on Vikerraadio earlier that morning, including that "70 percent of people in Estonia are bitter with [him]" over the current state of Estonian leadership, Kallas highlighted that the Reform Party retains freedom of opinion.

"I guess it's good to see that the vending machine is still working," she said, referencing when she told Delfi (link in Estonian) earlier this year that putting a mic in front of Ansip guaranteeing toxic comments about Kaja Kallas was like putting money in a soda vending machine and soda coming out.

To date, the only poll covered in the news in Estonia is a European Parliament elections survey commissioned by ERR and conducted by Kantar Emor, according to which Ansip had 6.6 percent support. This marked the best result of any Reform Party member, as fellow incumbent MEP Urmas Paet polled at 6.4 and current defense minister Hanno Pevkur 3.9 percent support.

In the 2019 European Parliament elections, Ansip earned 41,017 votes, or 12.3 percent of all Estonian votes cast that year.

Even so, these figures can't really be compared directly. For its recent survey, Kantar Emor listed by party the names of four likely candidates each political party itself had provided to ERR at the beginning of the month. Thus, with the exception of the Social Democratic Party (SDE), these were not officially confirmed candidates. Moreover, each party will have the opportunity to field up to nine candidates in this June's elections.

According to the survey conducted from March 14-20, SDE was polling with the highest support at 21.4 percent, followed by Reform with 18.9 percent support. The latter would have secured Reform two of Estonia's seven seats in the European Parliament.

Kantar Emor expert Aivar Voog highlighted that there are three candidates who poll as pulling in votes not just from their own party but from others as well – incumbent MEPs Marina Kaljurand (SDE/S&D), Jaak Madison (EKRE/ID) and Andrus Ansip (Reform/Renew).

"Ansip dropping out will make earning two mandates much more difficult for the Reform Party," Voog acknowledged.

Reform Party Secretary General Timo Suslov nonetheless said Ansip's decision to drop out of the running can't be regarded as either a loss or a win for the party.

"I suppose a longtime prime minister certainly brings in some votes, but let's not get ahead of ourselves," Suslov said. "There are other people too. And we'll count our chickens once the elections are over. We have other names that definitely want to run [for election] there. I don't think that seat will stay empty."

Ansip announced his decision to drop out of this June's European Parliament elections on Sunday.

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