March 1 elections likely to bring seats in Estonia parliament to 6 parties - survey
TALLINN. Feb 28 (Interfax/BNS) - An opinion poll suggests that the larger of the two parties making up Estonia's ruling coalition has been able to reverse a decline in its popularity that has been a trend for the past few months, and that as a result six parties will receive seats in parliament through Sunday's elections, the Postimees newspaper said.
"The results [survey returns] don't prompt the conclusion that the reason for the growing support for the Reform Party is the falling ratings of the Conservative Popular Party [EKRE]. It's just that support for EKRE has got dissipated among various other parties while the Reformists' numbers of supporters have grown due to other parties losing followers," argued Aivar Voog, an expert with TNS Emor, the opinion studies firm that carried out February's poll.
Moreover, being the prime minister's party, the Reformists received more attention than EKRE from the media during celebrations of the 97th anniversary of the Estonian Republic, Voog added.
The Center Party has the most stable electorate - 90% of respondents who identified themselves as its supporters in a poll in January still included themselves among its followers in February's survey.
Only about 60% of supporters of Isamaa ja Res Publica (IRL), remained loyal to the party between the two polls. The Social Democrats' record was roughly the same.
TNS Emor questioned 1,116 people online on February 23-26.
