Ratings: Center Party support falls to five-year low

Support for the opposition Center Party fell by one percentage point over the past week to 9.8 percent, its lowest level since the start of 2019, according to a recent survey.
A total of 38 percent of respondents to the poll, conducted by 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: The Reform Party, the Social Democrats (SDE) or Eesti 200, while 55.9 percent said they backed one of the three opposition parties: Isamaa, the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), or Center.
By party, Isamaa remains most supported at 27.3 percent this week, according to Norstat, followed by EKRE at 18.8 percent, and the Reform Party just behind them, at 18.5 percent.
Isamaa has not seen significant changes in its support over the most recent weeks, though it is currently 2.4 percentage points below its peak rating posted at the end of February.
EKRE has seen relatively stable support since the start of the year, while Reform's support is as noted practically on par with EKRE's, and has risen 1.8 percentage points from the low seen in late March.
These "top" three are followed by SDE on 14.3 percent, Center at 9.8 percent as noted, and Eesti 200 at 5.2 percent according to Norstat – just above the 5 percent threshold required to win seats in any direct election in Estonia.
The line graph below illustrates changes in party support levels since Norstat began its weekly polls in early 2019. (Key: Yellow = Reform, green = Center, black = EKRE, royal blue = Isamaa, red = SDE, light blue = Eesti 200, light green = Estonian Greens, orange = Parempoolsed).
Norstat conducts its polls on a weekly basis, aggregating them over four weeks – it is this aggregate which the above results refer to.
Norstat quizzed just over 4,000 Estonian citizens of Riigikogu voting age (18 and over) over the period April 1 to 29, to yield the above results.
Voters who expressed no preference are excluded from the results, while Norstat claims a margin of error in direct proportion to a party's size by support; so for instance Isamaa as the most-supported party sees a margin of error of +/-1.66 percent in its results, compared with +/-0.83 percent in the case of Eesti 200, the least-supported of the six Riigikogu parties at present, according to Norstat.
The next elections in Estonia are to the European Parliament, on June 6.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Mirjam Mäekivi