Ratings: Reform Party support rises above 20 percent
Support for the Reform Party has risen by 3.1 percentage points in three weeks and has surpassed 20 percent for the first time in over a year, according to a recent survey.
The research, compiled by pollsters Norstat on behalf of conservative think tank the Institute of Social Research, found that 26.9 percent of eligible voters were pledged for opposition party Isamaa, compared with 20.5 percent who said they support the coalition Reform Party.
Support for Isamaa is currently four percentage points lower than it was in early November, though the downward trend has been arrested, recent survey results suggest.
Conversely, support for Reform has risen by 3.1 percentage points over the past three weeks.
The gap between Isamaa and Reform at 6.4 percentage points is almost identical to that between Reform and the third-placed party, the Social Democrats (SDE), who according to Norstat polled at 14.2 percent this week.
The coalition SDE is one percentage point ahead of the opposition Center Party (13.2 percent), which in turn is a little ahead of the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), also in opposition, which polled at 12.7 percent this month.
The sixth party to be represented at the Riigikogu, Eesti 200, which is in office with Reform and SDE, polled at just 3.6 percent according to Norstat – well below the 5-percent threshold required to win seats under Estonia's electoral system, and also behind the non-parliamentary Parempoolsed, which had a 4.8 percent rating this week.
Of the remaining parties not elected to the Riigikogu, the Estonian Nationalists and Conservatives Party (ERK) had a 1.5-percent rating, just ahead of the Estonian Greens (Rohelised) at 1.2 percent.
In total, coalition parties are supported by 38.3 percent, while opposition parties receive 52.8 percent of respondents' backing.
The latest aggregate results, based on a survey of 4,000 voting-age Estonian citizens conducted from November 11 to December 8, reflect data calculated by the Institute of Social Research and Norstat, excluding voters without party preferences; the claimed margin of error is +/-1.68 percent for Isamaa's results (at 26.9 percent the most-supported party) and smaller for other parties, for instance +/-0.71 percent in the case of Eesti 200.
--
Follow ERR News on Facebook and Twitter and never miss an update!
Editor: Mirjam Mäekivi, Andrew Whyte
