Ratings: EKRE support lowest since early 2021

Support for the opposition Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) is at its lowest in over three years, according to one recent poll.
A total of 38.4 percent of respondents pledged their support for one of the three coalition parties, the Reform Party, Eesti 200 or the Social Democrats (SDE), compared with 55.5 percent support for the three opposition parties combined: Isamaa, EKRE and the Center Party.
By party, Isamaa remains most-supported, according to Norstat, at 27.7 percent.
Reform placed second at 18.7 percent, while EKRE polled at 16.5 percent, according to Norstat.
EKRE's support is as noted on a downward trend at present, by 1.3 percentage points in the space of a week and 2.3 percentage points over three weeks, to reach the lowest level since January 2021.
Meanwhile, Isamaa and the Reform Party are seeing stabilized support ratings following a rise in the case of the first of these parties, and a tendency towards a fall in the case of the other.
The "top" three are followed by SDE (14.1 percent), Center (11.3 percent) and Eesti 200 (5.6 percent).
While SDE's rating, too, is relatively unchanged, Center's result represents a 1.5 percentage-point rise; Eesti 200's has also risen, significantly to above the 5 percent required to win seats in any electoral district, under Estonia's d'Hondt system of proportional representation.
Norstat conducts its surveys on a weekly basis on behalf of the Institute for Societal Studies, and aggregates the results over the preceding four weeks.
The latest aggregated results reflect the survey period from April 22 to May 26, during which time just over 4,000 Estonian citizens of voting age (18 and over) were polled.
Norstat claims a margin of error in direct proportion to a party's size in terms of support, so for instance for Isamaa, as most-supported party, the margin of error is +/-1.69 percent compared with +/-0.87 percent for Eesti 200 as the least supported of the six Riigikogu parties.
Norstat says it weights its sample along key socio-demographic characteristics to ensure the results are representative, and uses both online and over-the-phone survey methods.
While the sample only polls those eligible to vote at Riigikogu elections (ie. Estonian citizens of 18 and over), the European election next month has a somewhat larger franchise, since EU nationals from any of the other 26 EU nations ordinarily resident in Estonia are eligible to vote here, if they have not registered to do so in their country of origin or another EU member state.
European elections in Estonia also tend to be more candidate-focused, rather than party-focused, and several independent candidates are running as well as full candidate lists from two parties (Parempoolsed and the Estonian Greens) not currently represented at the Riigikogu.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte