POPULARITY of the ruling coalition leader, the Smer party of Robert Fico, decreased in January. Results of a public opinion poll, which the polling institute of the Statistics Office ÚVVM conducted on a sample of 1,109 respondents between January 1 and 9 showed that Smer's support fell 1.3 percentage points compared with the previous month, the SITA newswire wrote.
In contrast, the popularity of the opposition Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ) is on the rise. The survey showed that its support rose 1.2 points from last December to 14.7 percent. This made it the second strongest political party in Slovakia. Junior coalition party, the Slovak National Party (SNS), came in third with support at 14 percent, which is 2.8 points more than a month ago. The Christian Democratic Movement (KDH) won 8.2 percent, the Hungarian Coalition Party (SMK) ended up with 8 percent and the ruling Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) received support of 7.2 percent of the respondents.
