PM Igor Matovič (front) and Economy Minister Richard Sulík (back) (source: TASR)
It seems that the recent disputes between PM Igor Matovič and Economy Minister Richard Sulík have benefitted the latter, at least in the latest preferences poll.
If the election was held in mid-January, Sulík’s Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) would end up second with 13.3 percent of the vote, while the Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) of PM Matovič would end third with only 10.1 percent.
SaS, which won only 6.22 percent of the vote in the February 2020 election, has increased in popularity in the past few months, while OĽaNO is dropping from its election result of 25.02 percent. The dispute between the two leaders escalated particularly at the end of last year and intensified during the recent nationwide testing, which the cabinet now dubs screening.
The election would be won by the non-parliamentary Hlas party of ex-prime minister Peter Pellegrini with 24.3 percent, according to the Focus poll carried out for the Na Telo political talk show broadcast by the private broadcaster TV Markíza between January 12 and 19 on 1,005 respondents. The party went up by more than 3 percentage points compared with the previous poll.
Sme Rodina falls as well
Four more parties would make it to the parliament. Fourth would be far-right Kotlebovci – People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) with 9.7 percent, followed by Smer with 9.1 percent and Progressive Slovakia with 5.2 percent.
The third-strongest party in the parliament, Sme Rodina of Boris Kollár, would fall to 5.1 percent. In the 2020 parliamentary election, it received 8.24 percent of the vote.
The party’s chair Kollár has faced several scandals recently, including his car accident from last October and his subsequent behaviour in the hospital, where he could receive visitors while the other patients could not due to the coronavirus.
The ruling coalition would not be able to form the government, the preferences suggest. The fourth coalition party Za Ľudí would not even make it to the parliament with only 4.2 percent of the vote.
The preferences were calculated from the 68.3 percent turnout. Some 17.4 percent of respondents said they would not vote and 14.3 percent did not know whether they would vote or not.
Matovič should leave
At the same time, a significant portion of people think that the Igor Matovič government is not managing the fight against the pandemic well.
Matovič should leave the prime ministerial post in favour of another cabinet member, according to 52 percent of respondents in the Median SK poll carried out for the public-service broadcaster RTVS. It was conducted between January 7 and 13 on 1,001 respondents.
As much as 60 percent of respondents do not consider Matovič a good prime minister, and only 17 percent think he is good in the post. The same percentage of respondents thinks he will manage to contain the virus.
