IF PARLIAMENTARY elections had been held at the turn of January and February, they would have been won by the ruling Smer party, backed by 42 percent of the vote. Current opposition party Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) would not make it into parliament, as it would fail to pass the 5 percent threshold.
These are the results of the poll carried out by the Polis polling agency over the phone between January 24 and February 2 in a survey of 1,969 respondents.
The Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) would have placed second with 10.1 percent of the vote, followed by Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) backed by 8.8 percent and the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) with 7.3 percent of the vote.
Also, Most-Híd and the Party of Hungarian Community (SMK) would have made it into parliament with 6.6 percent and 6 percent respectively, the SITA newswire reported.
SaS would be backed by just 4.2 percent of the vote. The nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS), and the NOVA party composed mainly of KDH and SaS renegades would be left out of parliament, with 3.8 and 3.7 percent support, respectively.
Smer would have an outright majority in parliament, controlling 78 of the 150 seats. KDH would have 19, OĽaNO 16, SDKÚ 14, Most-Híd 12 and SMK 11.
The poll also showed that 59 percent of respondents would vote in the elections, while 16 percent would not vote. About 25 percent of respondents were undecided, SITA reported.
The results of the Polis poll differ considerably from the most recent MVK polling agency poll, which surprised mainly with the high support for the People’s Party – Our Slovakia (ĽSNS) party of extremist Marian Kotleba, now a regional governor of Banská Bystrica.
His party polled at 7.6 percent, preceded only by Smer (38.1 percent), KDH (9.5), OĽaNO (9.2) and Nova (7.9). Apart from those, also Most-Híd (5.9), SMK (5.5) and SDKÚ (5.1) would make it into parliament, as reported by SITA.
