Kantar Emor survey: Hanno Pevkur remains most trusted government minister

Estonian citizens and residents continue to find Minister of Defense Hanno Pevkur the most trustworthy of the current crop of government ministers, followed by Prime Minister Kristen Michal, a recent survey found.
Both are members of the Reform Party.
Aivar Voog, research director at Kantar Emor, who conducted the poll, said: "The first five months of Kristen Michal's administration did not bring significant changes in the trustworthiness of ministers."
According to the survey, conducted in December, 28 percent of Estonian residents found Pevkur to be the most trustworthy of Estonia's government ministers, followed by Michal at 21 percent.
The prime minister was closely followed by Finance Minister Jürgen Ligi (Reform) and Health Minister Riina Sikkut (SDE), both of whom polled at 20 percent according to Kantar.

Of other ministers, "More than half of Estonian residents still cannot express an opinion regarding Erkki Keldo and Piret Hartman," Voog added, referring respectively to the economic affairs and regional ministers, of Reform and SDE.
"They still have the opportunity to introduce their work to people to move up the trust rankings," Voog added.
Public confidence in Minister of Education and Science Kristina Kallas (Eesti 200) and Minister of Climate Yoko Alender (Reform) has fallen somewhat, according to the poll, while in addition to a rise in confidence in Minister Sikkut, Social Security Minister Signe Riisalo (Reform) and Minister of Infrastructure Vladimir Svet (SDE) have both seen their trustworthiness ratings rise, albeit slightly.
By numbers, Kallas ranks fifth at 19 percent, followed by Minister of Culture Heidy Purga (Reform, 18 percent), Minister of the Interior Lauri Läänemets (SDE, 16 percent), Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna (Eesti 200) and Minister Riisalo (both at 13 percent), then Minister Svet (12 percent).

Minister Alender and Minister of Justice and Digital Affairs Liisa-Ly Pakosta (Eesti 200) both polled at 10 percent in Kantar's public confidence survey.
The lowest trust levels are for Minister of Regional and Agricultural Affairs Piret Hartman (7 percent) and Minister of Economic and Industrial Affairs Erkki Keldo (5 percent).
As noted, this may in part be the result of their being relative unknowns – Keldo is a first-time minister in the second and current Reform-SDE-Eesti 200 coalition (as is Alender), while Hartman had a fairly short spell as culture minister back in 2022-2023.
The above data is based on a nationwide representative survey conducted by Kantar Emor, carried out online between December 5 to 11, 2024.
A total of 1,156 Estonian residents aged 16 and older were quizzed, and were presented with a list of politicians who they had to pick their most-trusted minister from.
The Kantar Emor survey is a recurrent one; in the last such poll conducted in late summer last year, Pevkur was also top of the table in terms of trustworthiness (at 30 percent at the time), but the prime minister has risen since then, from fourth place to his current second place (though his absolute rating has fallen by one percentage point, to 21 percent, during that time).
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Editor: Andrew Whyte