The pro-European movement Progressive Slovakia (PS) narrowly topped the popularity rankings of Slovak parties for the first time before Saturday’s parliamentary elections. This follows from the results of the election model of the agency NMS Market Research, commissioned by the newspaper Sme. According to this source, nine parties or coalitions would enter the lower house, but the support of several of them is close to the electoral threshold.
The support of the now non-parliamentary PS, whose head is the vice president of the European Parliament Michal Šimečka, reached 19.7 percent. The movement, which, among other things, promotes the introduction of the institute of life partnerships for all couples, relegated the Smér – social democracy (Smér-SD) ex-prime minister Robert Fico to second place. The popularity of the Direction-SD, which, unlike the PS, rejects the continuation of military aid defending Ukraine, reached 19.4 percent.
Sme wrote that if the previous statements of politicians regarding the exclusion of mutual cooperation were valid, only the PS would be able to form a government coalition. However, it would have to be composed of five sides.
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In the electoral model, the Hlas-SD party of former Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, who worked in Smér-SD for many years, finished in third place with 10.5 percent support.
Almost a double-digit preference was achieved by the coalition around the now strongest parliamentary movement Ordinary People and the independent personality of former Prime Minister Igor Matovič, who has long opposed the Direction-SD and, in the ongoing campaign, also against the liberal proposals of the PS. The popularity of this coalition has now increased.
With the support of 8.5 percent, the right-wing populist movement Republika finished in fifth place, to which representatives of the far-right party Kotlebovci – Lidová strana Naše Slovensko transferred in the past. The Republic also rejects military aid to Ukraine and would like a referendum on Slovakia’s withdrawal from NATO.
The other four parties, namely the liberal Svoboda a Solidarita, the non-parliamentary nationalist Slovak National Party, the non-parliamentary Christian Democratic Movement and the movement We are the family of Speaker of the House Boris Kollár, have the support of 5.2 to 5.7 percent of respondents. Independent candidate parties must receive at least five percent of the vote in the elections in order to win seats in the Slovak National Council.
NMS Market Research collected data for the election model from September 21 to 24, and 1,411 respondents took part in the survey. The results of polls from other agencies will be published on Wednesday, when the election campaign ends in Slovakia.
