After two years as mayor, Edgar Savisaar remains the candidate of choice for most Tallinn residents.

TALLINN — According to a poll by a local newspaper, Tallinn’s incumbent mayor Edgar Savisaar is set to be reelected off the back of strong Russian support in the city.

The Eesti Päevaleht poll surveyed 950 inhabitants of Tallinn with Savisaar receiving 38 percent. The next highest candidate Mart Laar got only 10 percent. The poll found that three out of four Russian speakers in the city preferred Savisaar, who has positioned himself as a champion of the Russian community in the city according to analysts. Tallinn is 40 percent Russian.

“During the last two years, especially at the time with the bronze solder issue, the Center party was able to present itself as a defender of Russian interests and feelings,” political analyst Toomas Alatalu told Baltic Reports. “This was a turning point when the Center party became significant for Russians.”

Alatalu said that over the last decade, parties popular with Russian speakers have died off leaving the Center party, which Savisaar is leader of, to collect all the votes.

“Now the majority of Russian speakers are voting for Savisaar himself – this is a pool of about 100,000 voters. In other cases, they are voting for other Russian candidates in the Center party itself. It seems that the Center party will receive more votes,” Alatalu said.

Estonians supported for other mayoral candidates more evenly than the Russians in the poll.

“If the Center Party wins more than half the council seats, then these results it was decided two years ago,” Tõnis Saarts, a Tallinn University political scientist said in Eesti Päevaleht, referring to the reaction of the Center party to the bronze soldier being removed from the center of Tallinn.

“The fact that the Russians will vote only for a single candidate, it is not normal and positive state of affairs, but it can not be explained only by a successful campaign. Other parties have done something very wrong,” Saarts said.

Since taking office in 2007, Savisaar has garnered support by providing menial work for the unemployed. The Tallinn City Government also provided potatoes and wood for their homes if citizens couldn’t afford it during the winter. Russian speakers have suffered heavily during the crisis with the large drops in demand for manufactured goods, many of which come from the factories surrounding Tallinn.

“There are more unemployed among the Russian citizens and they are prepared to do primitive work more than Estonians,” Alatalu told Baltic Reports. “There are even comments that Savisaar has a Slavonic approach using the church. He is using this as an opening.”

Other than directly serving the needs of the Russian population, voting for Savisaar is seen as a direct vote against incumbent Prime Minister Andrus Ansip, who has opposed many of the policies of Savisaar.

“This is also for them to express a protest against the Estonian government — the people who want to say this vote for Savisaar. If you want to protest Ansip, vote Savisaar. This relationship is based on confrontation,” Alatalu said.

Given the city’s importance to the country, the mayorship of Tallinn is a stepping stone both to and from the national government. Former Prime Minister Mart Laar got the second-highest amount of support in the poll. Laar said there is a large fraction of societ who still haven’t made their minds up.

“For me, it is not life and death, who shall be elected. The main thing is that the exchange would take place in Tallinn,” Laar said in Eesti Päevaleht.

Tallinn’s mayoral election will be held Oct. 18.