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The rating of the Estonian opposition Reform Party, after falling by a third last year, exhibited an upward spike in January and now exceeds support for the coalition Center Party by 1.1 percentage points, it appears from a survey commissioned by BNS and Postimees and carried out by pollster Kantar Emor at the beginning of January.
Voter support for the Reform Party stood at 24.4 percent in January, up 1.4 percentage points in monthly comparison. Support for Center, however, which topped the list in December, fell by 2.6 percentage points on month to 23.3 percent.
Third in popularity remains the opposition Conservative People Party (EKRE) with the support of 20.2 percent, having lost a marginal 0.1 percentage points compared to the month before.
The Social Democrat Party (SDE) placed fourth with the support of 11.8 percent of people questioned. The figure rose by 2.6 percentage points on December.
Pro Patria came in fifth, surpassing newcomer Estonia 200, the support for which decreased compared to the previous month. Support for Pro Patria stood at 8 percent, whereas that for Estonia 200 was 6.6 percent in January. The scores stood at 7.8 percent and 8.2 percent respectively last month.
Falling below the 5 percent election threshold, support for the the non-parliamentary Estonian Greens was 3.3 percent in January, whereas the Free Party dropped from 2 percent in December to 1.4 percent this month
Support for the Biodiversity Party, registered for the first time in January, came to 0.5 percent. The People's Unity Party was the political preference of 0.3 percent of the respondents, the Estonian Independence Party of 0.2 percent and People's Will of 0.1 percent.
The answers of people who listed "no preference" as to party identification were eliminated from the outcome to make it as comparable as possible to the outcome of parliamentary elections. The share of people who said "no preference" was 21 percent in January. The margin of error is ±2.4 percent per 1,000 respondents.
Pollster Kantar Emor questioned 1,340 citizens aged 18-84 by way of online interviews between January 4 and January 8.