The latest election poll by the agency Focus from the first week of February on around 1,000 respondents indicates a swing towards the more recently established political parties, mostly to the detriment of the SDKU party, which has seen its support plummet to just over 6% in the poll, edging on the parliamentary 5% threshold.
With so many accusations surrounding the Gorilla corruption affair, which was mostly carried out during SDKU party chairman Mikulas Dzurinda’s second government, the tides are turning in favour of new parties, while Robert Fico’s Smer-SD party still enjoys its ever loyal support, regardless of Gori
lla allegations also at him and his party.
Igor Matovic’s recently formed Ordinary People and Independent Personalities party came out with 8.9% of the vote according to the poll. Another poll by Polis agency made after a split with 24 of its key candidates, though, showed the party wavering around the 5% threshold.
Another new party, the so-called 99% initiative has also rocketed to 6.9% according to the poll, and so is now cashing in on the massive marketing campaign that it has been pushing. Two main TV stations were even fined for broadcasting their political adverts. The party could therefore easily make it into parliament, especially as it is pushing the Gorilla affair to the forefront of its campaign, but ironically some would say, it is a top candidate for forming a government with Fico’s Smer-SD party, which looks set to win the elections as it still enjoys 40.8% of the vote according to the Polis poll, or 37.3% according to the Focus poll.
The Christian democrats of KDH topped the 10% mark according to the Focus poll, while its government coalition partners Most-Hid and SaS are alongside the SDKU party with roughly 6% each. According to Polis, the SDKU party would only get 5.1% of the vote, and so a shock could be in the making if the party were not to make it into parliament for the first time.
The Polis election poll attributed 9.8% to KDH, 8.4% to Most-Híd, and 6.6% to the Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS) of Richard Sulik. The poll also pushed the nationalist party SNS of Jan Slota to just 4.6%, so maybe another farewell from parliament.
The polls should be taken with a pinch of salt, though, because even though the elections are just 3 weeks away, it is too early to predict what will unfold before the 10 March, as one of the dirtiest election campaigns heats up and the Gorilla affair investigation moves forward.