IF PARLIAMENTARY elections had been held in mid-March 2013, the ruling Smer party would have won 36.8 percent of the vote, up from the 34.6 percent it received in February, but this would not have been enough for Robert Fico to repeat his March 2012 victory and form a single-party government, a recent opinion poll has suggested.
The poll, carried out by the Focus agency between March 6 and 12 on a sample of 1,002 respondents, also showed that the party of Daniel Lipšic, New Majority (NOVA), would receive 5.1 percent of the vote, just over the 5-percent threshold required to win seats in parliament. Its support fell by 0.3 percentage points compared to the February Focus poll, the SITA newswire reported on March 25.
The Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) would have received the second highest vote after Smer, with 10.2 percent, down from its 10.9 percent in February, followed by the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) with 9.4 percent, up from 8.9 percent. Ordinary People and Independent Personalities (OĽaNO) would also have made it into parliament with 8.3 percent (down 0.6 percentage points), Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) with 6.8 percent (down from 7.7 percent), and Most-Híd with 5.6 percent of the vote (up from the 5.1-percent support it received in the February poll), SITA reported.
