PRIME Minister Robert Fico would win the first round of the presidential election with 38.8 percent of the vote, leaving the remaining 14 candidates far behind, according to an opinion poll conducted over the phone by the Median polling agency for the public-service RTVS.
RTVS published the results in its weekly televised debate on Sunday noon. The first round of the election is scheduled for March 15. To win the election in the first round, a candidate must harvest more than 50 percent of the votes cast in the elections.
Of the 15 candidates running in the elections, the poll shows the independent candidate Andrej Kiska as having the highest chance to make it to the second round to face Fico. Kiska would garner 18.6 percent of the vote, followed by Milan Kňažko, also independent, with 12.9 percent.
Another independent candidate Radoslav Procházka would get 9.9 percent of the vote, according to the poll, while the candidate of the three major rightist parties gathered within the Peoples Platform, Pavol Hrušovský of KDH, would get 5.7 percent. Helena Mezenská, an MP from the caucus of Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO), would get 5.6 percent, followed by the official candidate of the Party of Hungarian Community (SMK) Gyula Bárdos with 2.6 percent.
Independent candidate Viliam Fischer would get 2.1 percent, while former prominent KDH member running as independent candidate, Ján Čarnogurský, would get 1.9 percent. All other candidates finished with less than 1 percent.
Source: RTVS
Compiled by Michaela Terenzani from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
