Robert Fico (source: TASR)
Robert Fico, former prime minister and chair of the opposition party Smer, is one of the few politicians whose trustworthiness among leaders keeps rising. Currently, he is the fifth-most trusted political leader in the country.
This stems from a recent poll carried out by the Focus agency for the Na Telo political talk show broadcast by private TV Markíza on September 1-7 on 1,002 respondents.
The results mirror the developments in the political preferences poll. The one carried out by the same pollster in September shows Smer as the second-most popular party, with the support of some 14 percent, the Sme daily reported.
President and coalition leaders down
Although President Zuzana Čaputová remains the most trusted politician in Slovakia with 49-percent trust, in the June poll as much as 54 percent of respondents said they trust her. Trust in the president has continued to fall since January 2021, when her trustworthiness amounted to some 64 percent, Sme wrote.
“For the first time in about two years, no politician enjoys the trust of more than half of the population,” said Martin Slosiarik, head of Focus, as quoted by Sme.
He said that the president’s trustworthiness has dropped the most of all political leaders, explaining this was mostly due to the voters of the opposition parties.
In the poll, the president is followed by ex-PM Peter Pellegrini of Hlas, who also saw his trustworthiness drop, from 44 percent to 41 percent in September.
Third is PM Eduard Heger (OĽaNO) with 30 percent, followed by SaS chair Richard Sulík with 29 percent. Sulík, similarly to the chairs of other political parties, has seen a drop in trustworthiness. The most significant decrease was reported by Za Ľudí chair Veronika Remišová and OĽaNO chair Igor Matovič.
Extremists on the rise
Apart from Fico, other opposition leaders are also growing in popularity.
This includes Andrej Danko, chair of the non-parliamentary Slovak National Party (currently at 25 percent) and Milan Uhrík (at 23 percent), chair of the far-right Republika party.
The latter party was created by renegades of the far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) led by Marian Kotleba, who also reported a rise in trustworthiness to 20 percent, Sme reported.
