Parempoolsed leader rises to 3rd in prime minister preference list
Parempoolsed leader Lavly Perling rose to third place in the ratings for the candidate Estonians would most like to see as prime minister, according to a recent survey.
Isamaa chairman Urmas Reinsalu topped the ratings, conducted by pollsters Norstat, on behalf of think tank the Institute for Societal Studies, and had overtaken Center Party leader Mihhail Kõlvart in second place. The current prime minister, Kristen Michal (Reform), was in fifth place in the survey.
Reinsalu polled at 28 percent, four percentage points ahead of Kõlvart. In the same survey conducted a month ago, the two were neck-and-neck at 26 percent.
Rising to third place in the prime ministerial preference rating was Lavly Perling, leader of Parempoolsed, at 13 percent of respondents (up from 11 percent in December).
Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE) chairman Martin Helme fell to fourth place with a 12-percent rating, down from 15 percent in December 2025.
In fifth place was prime minister Kristen Michal at 10 percent, unchanged from last month's figure, followed by Social Democrats (SDE) leader Lauri Läänemets at 8 percent and Eesti 200 leader Kristina Kallas, who rated at 6 percent.
Notably, Läänemets' personal rating is lower than his party's, according to Norstat (at 14.7 percent) while Kallas' is three times that of her party, which polled at 2.1 percent in the latest Norstat party ratings rating.
Reinsalu, too, polled slightly higher than his party, Isamaa, which picked up 27 percent of support this month. In all other cases, the parties' leaders polled ahead of the overall party rating: Center's rating was 20.2 percent in the latest Norstat survey, Reform's was 14.7 percent, EKRE's 11.6 percent and Parempoolsed's 6.6 percent.
Norstat conducted its prime minister survey January 19.24, quizzing 1,000 Estonian citizens aged 18 and over.
A party's leader is generally its prime ministerial candidate at a Riigikogu election. The next of these is in March 2027.
Who is Lavly Perling?
Lavly Perling is a lawyer who served as Estonia's Prosecutor General 2014-2019. She became involved in politics after leaving this role, initially with Isamaa, running for the party in Saue at the 2021 local government elections. She has also worked as an adviser to Ukraine on its rule of law reforms
Parempoolsed began as a breakaway faction of Isamaa, becoming a party in its own right in 2022, with Perling elected as leader. Perling won a seat in Tallinn's Kesklinn district at the 2025 local government council elections, with 3,155 votes.
When the party was founded, Perling billed Parempoolsed as the only right wing party in Estonia – the name literally means right-wingers – but this is primarily from a free market economic focus, where the party has been critical of state support and other subsidies. On social issues the party is broadly liberal and according to some experts on par with Eesti 200, and has expressed pro-immigration views.
ERR News interviewed Perling back in late 2022.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
