Ahead of the upcoming general elections in Slovakia, a new poll from the Focus agency confirms the strongest party, Smer-SD of ex-Prime Minister Robert Fico, is in decline.
At the same time, the poll shows the strengthening of the opposition movement Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OLaNO) which ranks as the second most popular party after Smer-SD.
It is also the first poll which shows the remaining two government parties, Most-Híd and the Slovak National Party (SNS), would not make it into the parliament this time.
The Slovak parliamentary elections are taking place on Feb. 29.
Based on the results of the poll, five opposition or non-parliamentary parties, which have aligned themselves against Smer-SD, could form a coalition with majority support in the unicameral Slovak parliament.
Compared to the January poll, the popularity of Smer-SD further decreased to 17 percent from 18 percent. OLaNO, on the other hand, rose significantly to 13.3 percent from 9 percent. The far-right Kotlebists belonging to the People’s Party Our Slovakia rank third, with 12.2 percent of voters’ support.
The coalition of the non-parliamentary parties of Progressive Slovakia (PS) and Together (9.3 percent), the new For the People party of the Ex-president Andrej Kiska (8.2 percent) and the opposition movement We Are Family (7.8 percent) are also polling closely.
The Focus agency poll, ran on behalf of the PS/Together coalition, was conducted between Feb. 6 and Feb. 12 among 1,005 respondents over 18 years of age.
While the government party Most-Híd has been below the 5-percent threshold for some time now, the SNS parliamentary chairman, Andrej Danko, has also fallen below it, with voter support of SNS at 4.4 percent.
Danko admitted at the end of January that he had previously communicated with one of the defendants in the case about the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak, which is believed to be responsible for the decline in voter support.
Before the elections, Smer-SD and SNS want to push through higher child allowances, the introduction of 13th pension, and cancel toll stickers. Both parties announced these measures this week and the government approved the proposals on Wednesday.
On Friday of last week, agencies, parties, and media in Slovakia were allowed to publish the last polls. Then, a two-week moratorium on the publication of polls will apply, ending with the closure of the polling station on the day of the elections.
