According to a survey conducted by Polis Slovakia polling agency, support of voters for a junior member of the ruling coalition, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) shrank for the third month in row, the SITA newswire wrote. The party currently has the support of only 4.1 percent of those polled compared with 5.1 percent in December.
The party headed by Vladimír Mečiar has thus landed among the parties that may have trouble making the 5 percent threshold required to enter parliament after the elections. If the elections had been held in February, the opposition SMK would have collected 5.1 percent, the Slovak National Party 5.6 percent and Most-Híd 6 percent. Polis surveyed 917 respondents by telephone between February 5 and 7.
The Smer party remains strongest. The party of Prime Minister Robert Fico gained 2.1 percentage points from January, rising to 40.8 percent. The opposition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) was second with 14.4 percent. Ten percent of those polled would vote for the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH).
The Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS) recorded the steepest jump in popularity, up 2.6 percentage points, and was supported by 8.1 percent of the respondents. If the parliamentary elections had been held in February, the voter turnout would have been 67 percent. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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