Ratings: EKRE overtakes Reform Party, Isamaa still has highest support
The opposition Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) is now the second-most supported political party after Isamaa, also in opposition, according to a recent survey.
EKRE has achieved this at the expense of the coalition Reform Party, whose rating has dropped to its lowest point since pollsters Norstat began conducting their survey in early 2019.
Isamaa remains the highest-rated party at 30.5 percent support, though its support levels did not change over the past week, according to Norstat.
Over the same period, EKRE gained one percentage point in support, moving up to second place in the rankings and polling at 17.7 percent.
Reform, the prime minister's party, lost 1.1 percentage points over the week, dropping to 16 percent.
The third opposition party, the Center Party, rated next at 14 percent, followed by the coalition Social Democrats at 11.3 percent.
Eesti 200, also in coalition, rated at 2.8 percent this week according to Norstat. The party has, for several months, had a rating below the 5 percent required to win seats under Estonia's electoral system.
A total of 30.1 percent of respondents backed the three coalition parties, Norstat found, compared with 62.2 percent who supported one of the three opposition parties (respondents who picked non-parliamentary parties make up the balance).
The combined rating for the coalition is also at its lowest point since early 2019.
Norstat Eesti AS conducts its surveys on a weekly basis on behalf of the conservative think tank, the Institute for Societal Studies, aggregating the results over the preceding four weeks.
The latest period runs from February 3 to March 2, and just over 4,000 Estonian citizens of Riigikogu voting age (18 and over) were surveyed.
Respondents who have no party preference are excluded from the calculations of relative party support, Norstat says, to make the results as representative of a Riigikogu election as possible.
Norstat claims a margin of error directly proportional to the size of a party by support, so, for instance, Isamaa's results come with a margin of error of +/-1.75 percent, compared with one of +/-0.63 percent for Eesti 200.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Aleksander Krjukov
