ROBERT Fico, current prime minister and chair of the ruling Smer party, has lost some of his voter support, according to the latest poll.
While in the Focus agency’s October poll 37.8 percent of those surveyed favoured Fico, in November Focus showed his support had declined to 36.9 percent. Moreover, Fico would not win the second round if he ran against independent candidate Andrej Kiska, the SITA newswire reported.
While almost 17 percent of those polled would not turn up to vote, almost 20 percent did not know whom they would vote for.
Kiska placed second after Fico in the poll, with 17.9 percent of the vote, followed by Pavol Hrušovský with 15.6 percent. Radoslav Procházka would garner 10.3 percent of the vote, followed by Milan Kňažko (not an official candidate yet) with 7.2 percent, Ján Čarnogurský with 5.9 percent, and Peter Osuský with 4.2 percent. Ľubica Blašková, Jozef Behýl, and Milan Melník would get less than one percent of the vote each.
Focus pollsters also asked the respondents whom they would vote for in the second round, giving options of several pairs of candidates. Fico came out first in the run-off with every pairing except for Andrej Kiska, who received 51 percent of the vote.
Meanwhile, Smer remains tight-lipped about its presidential candidate. The most recent information from the party leadership, which the Sme daily published on November 20, shows that Fico is personally eager to run, but Smer’s board opposes the idea due to worries that the party’s strength and support would diminish without Fico. The party is expected to introduce its candidate by the end of this year.
Source: SITA, Sme
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
