Ratings: Center Party sees further rise in support in Tallinn
Support for the opposition Center Party in Tallinn rose by 2.1 percentage points over the past two weeks, according to a recent survey, published exactly two months before the local elections in Estonia.
Center's rating across local municipalities nationwide was also highest out of all the parties, just slightly ahead of Isamaa's.
Overall in Tallinn, Center polled at 40.2 percent, according to the research, conducted by pollsters Norstat on behalf of the Institute for Social Research.
Center had long been dominant in the capital, ruling there alone for nearly two decades until it was ousted from office in April 2024. The party polled at 45.4 percent at the last local elections in 2021, enough for 38 council seats, but not a majority that time.
SDE polled second in the latest Norstat survey at 17.8 percent, a small drop in its rating, of 0.4 percentage points.
Isamaa placed third at 14.9 percent, a rise of 1.1 percentage points over the past month, following an earlier fall in support in Tallinn.
The Reform Party, which in July left the Tallinn coalition, rated at 10 percent, a fall of 0.5 percentage points over the past two weeks.
The Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) ranked next at 7.6 percent support, a small rise, of 0.3 percentage points, over the past two weeks.
Support for the non-parliamentary Parempoolsed party, contesting its first local elections, has however fallen by 1.9 percentage points, to 5.4 percent, still above the 5-percent threshold required to win seats in any given district.
The results nationwide for each of Estonia's 79 municipalities also saw Center ahead, at 21.9 percent support compared with 19.6 percent for Isamaa. These two parties were followed by support for municipality-specific electoral alliances at 16.4 percent, EKRE at 14.2 percent, SDE (11.2 percent), Reform (9.7 percent), Parempoolsed (3.3 percent) and Eesti 200 (1.8 percent).
The pro-Kremlin Koos party polled at 1.1 percent nationwide, the ERK, formed by ex-EKRE members, at 0.4 percent, and the Greens at 0.3 percent.
Center's support nationally had risen by 0.6 percentage points over two weeks, while Isamaa's had fallen by 0.8 percentage points over the same period.
Nationwide, Center polled at 24.4 percent support at the 2021 local elections, just a fraction ahead of the electoral alliances combined, at 24.3 percent. Reform received 17.3 percent of the vote nationwide in 2021, EKRE 13.2 percent, Isamaa 8.4 percent, Eesti 200 6 percent and SDE 5 percent.
Norstat's latest survey reflects the situation in the period from August 4 to August 18.
The local elections take place Sunday, October 19.
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Editor: Aleksander Krjukov, Andrew Whyte
