Ratings: Isamaa's support falls as SDE's rises
While the opposition Isamaa has seen a fall in support in recent weeks, support for the Social Democrats (SDE), also in opposition, has risen, according to a recent poll.
Coalition party Eesti 200's rating has once again fallen to a new record low, according to the survey, conducted by pollsters Norstat on behalf of NGO the Institute for Societal Studies, a conservative think-tank.
Isamaa's rating dropped by 1.9 percentage points over the past two weeks, and currently stands at 26.3 percent, according to Norstat. Isamaa remains the most supported party, however.
Support for the Center Party, in opposition too, has risen by 1.5 percentage points compared with where it stood a month ago, to 21.9 percent, making Center the second-most supported party.
As noted SDE's rating went up – by 1.1 percentage points over the past week. SDE's support has risen by a total of 1.9 percentage points over the past four weeks, and now stands at 15.1 percent.
Following these "top" three are the coalition Reform Party at 13 percent, and the Conservative People's Party of Estonia (EKRE), in opposition, which had a 12 percent rating.
The non-parliamentary Parempoolsed polled at 6.3 percent this week, according to Norstat. This figure is significant in that 5 percent is the minimum share of the vote required to win seats in any electoral district, under Estonia's proportional representation system.
Meanwhile Eesti 200, in office with Reform, polled well below the 5-percent threshold, at 1.5 percent, according to Norstat. While Eesti 200 has long seen a decline in its rating, this is its lowest level since Norstat started conducting its polls in its current format in early 2019, just months after Eesti 200 was founded. The party currently has 13 Riigikogu seats.
Extrapolating the Norstat results to electoral results, Isamaa would win 30 Riigikogu seats, well up from its current eight; Center 24, also a large advance on the six the party currently holds; SDE would win 16 seats (up from its current nine), Reform 13, not much more than a third of the 37 mandates it currently has; EKRE 12 (currently 10) and Parempoolsed six.
The next Riigikogu elections are in March 2027.
23 percent of respondents approve of Kristen Michal's performance as head of government
The two coalition parties together polled at 14.5 percent compared with 75.3 percent for the four opposition parties, according to the latest Norstat poll.
Norstat conducts its polls on a weekly basis, aggregating the results over the preceding four weeks. The latest results cover the period March 9 to April 5, during which time a total of 4,000 Estonian citizens of Riigikogu voting age (18+) were quizzed.
Norstat excludes undecided responses from its party preference survey, to make the results resemble a Riigikogu election's results as closely as possible
Norstat claims a margin of error in direct proportion to the size of a party by support, so for Isamaa, as most supported party, the claimed margin of error is +/-1.6 percent compared with +/-0.44 percent for Eesti 200 as least supported.
In addition to their party preferences, respondents to the Norstat poll are once per month asked their opinion on the government's and the prime minister's performance. Based on the latest results, 25 percent of respondents think that the government is doing its job "very well" or "quite well", compared with 69 percent who think that the government has been performing "quite poorly" or "very poorly" (the balance would be made up of "don't know" responses).
As for the prime minister, 23 percent of respondents said they approve of Kristen Michal's (Reform) performance, compared with the 65 percent of respondents who disapprove of how is handling his job as prime minister.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
