The latest Ipsos public opinion poll for the Pravda daily has confirmed the Smer party’s lead ahead of the election. Smer would come first with 20.3 percent if the election took place in mid-September.
Eight parties would get into parliament.
Harmed by smear campaigns against its leader, the populist party Sme Rodina, led by Speaker Boris Kollár, would stay out of the parliament. Conversely, OĽaNO, a self-proclaimed anti-corruption movement led by former PM and finance minister Igor Matovič, running in the election as a coalition with two smaller parties, would receive more than 8 percent. This would be enough for the coalition party to win seats in the house. A publicised fight between Matovič and Smer’s former interior minister Robert Kaliňák may have helped OĽaNO.
The liberal party SaS, led by ex-economy minister Richard Sulík, has also improved its numbers, just like the gradually growing Slovak National Party (SNS). This cannot be said about the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH). KDH leader Milan Majerský called the LGBT+ community a ‘plague’ on live TV a few weeks ago, which might have had an affect on the party’s result in the poll.
On Thursday, Sulík called on smaller parties that have no chance of winning any seat in the house to withdraw from the race. It is not about who wins the election, he added, it is about Smer leader and former three-time PM Robert Fico not gaining 76 votes in parliament.
On September 20, former Slovak President Andrej Kiska announced that he would vote for SaS next Saturday.
According to the poll, Slovakia would end up in a post-election stalemate. Smer, nor Progresívne Slovensko, would be able to form a stable government, though both parties grew slightly stronger compared to the previous Ipsos poll.
The coalition of Smer, Hlas, Republika and SNS would control 84 seats in the 150-seat house. But Hlas refuses to be part of a coalition that includes the far-right party Republika. If Republika is replaced with KDH, such a coalition would have 78 seats, a very fragile majority. In addition, KDH refuses cooperation with Smer.
PS would risk forming a very diverse coalition government, but only if the party managed to convince Hlas, SaS, OĽaNO and KDH to be part of it.
According to Sulík, the darkest scenario is the formation of the Smer, Hlas, Republika and SNS coalition government.
"Then Slovakia would become the black hole of Europe again," he said.
The third most popular party in the polls, Hlas, is said to decide what the next government might look like. Its leader and ex-PM Peter Pellegrini has not ruled out cooperation with PS, but he said that he would not want to sit in a government with Smer leader Robert Fico. He believes that two ex-prime ministers sitting in one government is not ideal. In a video, Fico has used Pellegrini’s vague statement regarding cooperation with PS to appeal to Hlas voters and to ask them to vote for Smer. In this way, Fico may be attempting to strengthen Smer’s position. In the video, Fico told Hlas voters that Hlas wants to form a progressive government with PS.
Despite his strategy and attacks on Hlas, Fico calls Hlas a sister party. It was founded by Smer renegades three years ago.
Based on Denník N’s informal talks with top Hlas members, most of them appear to support a Smer-led coalition government.
In response to a video posted by Fico, but unbothered by his claims, Pellegrini also posted a video to tell Hlas voters that he cannot imagine being part of a coalition with liberal parties, nor a coalition that would include a far-right party.
