By: Spletni časopis
The collapse of “Svoboda’s collapse” and the rise of the centre‑right and the new Democrats are shown in the public opinion polls published yesterday.
If the elections were held today, the centre‑right (SDS, NSi, Democrats) would be significantly stronger than in the last election, while the current governing coalition (with the exception of Levica in part of the measurements) is on the defensive. Three polls, by Ninamedia for Dnevnik, the Janez Evangelist Krek Institute (founded by NSi politicians), and Parsifal for Nova24TV, were published yesterday.
Dominance of SDS and the decline of Svoboda
All of them show the dominance of Janez Janša’s SDS and a sharp decline of Robert Golob’s Gibanje Svoboda. SDS has long been the leading party, and according to the latest measurements (February 2026), it reaches between 28.3% and 29.0%. This represents a noticeable rise compared to the 2022 election result (23.5%). Gibanje Svoboda shows the steepest drop: from the winning 34.5% in the election to between 20.3% (Parsifal) and 25.1% (Ninamedia). The decline is even more dramatic considering that after the election the party merged with LMŠ and SAB.
If we take into account the merger with Marjan Šarec’s LMŠ and Alenka Bratušek’s SAB (not shown in the chart above), the three together received 40.8% of the vote four years ago, now almost half as many voters would choose Svoboda. Golob’s online‑media campaign has not helped either, including the video in which he, on the steps of the Franciscan Church in Ljubljana, asks a young man eating there for a piece of burek, a gesture meant to signal how much more “free” we supposedly are today, now that the emergency measures seen across Europe during Janez Janša’s government are gone, when many elderly people were dying of Covid. The PR stunt, meant to revive memories of the pandemic, is an attempt to shift attention. The message is: in Golob’s Slovenia you are “free” to eat burek on church steps because Covid is no longer a problem, even the prime minister does it. But the ad says nothing about the fact that we are no longer free enough for the flagship investigative show Tarča on public television to examine the prime minister’s holidays on Ugljan or the questionable dealings of his associates. The burek used to divert attention is easier to digest than the truth about censorship and the persecution of opposition politicians through the police and state media, both of which Golob has purged politically.
The main new factor: The Democrats
The biggest novelty compared to the previous election is the new party, the Democrats of Anže Logar, which has stabilised as a strong player, though it is not entirely clear which side it will ultimately support. Logar insists that his goal is a grand coalition that would include his party and the largest party on the left, which is currently Svoboda. Since Svoboda refuses cooperation with the centre‑right SDS, this could be a formula for keeping Robert Golob’s coalition in power with Logar’s help. But this is not guaranteed, after an electoral defeat, Golob might have to step down quickly, and the exclusionary stance typical of the more radical parties could change. Or some other surprise may occur.
In all three recent polls (Parsifal, RC IJEK, Ninamedia), the Democrats score very similar results, between 7.4% and 7.7%. This puts them in a direct contest for third place with NSi and SD.
Levica rising in RC IJEK, NSi third in Parsifal
NSi under Jernej Vrtovec, together with SLS and Fokus, shows slight growth compared to the election (from 6.9% to between 7.6% and 9.8%). Parsifal measures their highest support. SD under Matjaž Han fluctuates between 7.2% and 8.2%, slightly above their last election result of 6.7%. For Levica under Asta Vrečko with Vesna, the differences between pollsters are the largest: Parsifal gives them 6.1%, while RC IJEK gives them as much as 9.6%. The charts clearly show that results depend on who is measuring, different agencies favour different political blocs.
A warning: We should not trust opinion polls. They completely missed both recent referendums and the European elections. Each time, three times in a row, they were off in favour of the governing parties, i.e., the left. Most companies conducting polls for major media (Ninamedia, Mediana, Valicon) are known to have business and political ties with politicians of the ruling parties. The data analysis was also prepared with the help of AI Gemini.
Ninamedia measures the highest support for Gibanje Svoboda (25.1%). RC IJEK measures above‑average support for Levica (9.6%) and Resni.ca (4.4%). Parsifal measures the highest support for SDS (29.0%) and NSi (9.8%), and at the same time the lowest support for Gibanje Svoboda (20.3%).
Will there be another new player in Parliament?
Other parties currently outside parliament could also shake things up. Zoran Stevanović’s Resni.ca is the most stable among those challenging the parliamentary threshold. According to RC IJEK (14 February 2026), it reaches 4.4%, which would mean entering parliament. Other agencies are more cautious: Ninamedia gives them 3.7%, Parsifal 3.4%. In previous months they reached even higher levels. Vladimir Prebilič’s Prerod is also fighting for entry: Parsifal gives him 4.3%, placing him in parliament, while Ninamedia (2.9%) and RC IJEK (2.0%) measure much less. Jasmin Feratović’s Pirates remain the biggest unknown due to extremely different results across pollsters: Parsifal places them high at 4.8% (more than in the 2022 election, when they received 1.6%), while Ninamedia measures only 1.6%. Since polls are inaccurate and miss even simple referendum outcomes, and since the election is still far away, we should not write off SNS of Zmago Jelinčič or other smaller players, who matter because they “steal” votes from larger parties.
Methodology notes
In the charts and the article in Spletni časopis, party support shares are recalculated to include only voters who expressed a party preference. This allows comparison with elections and between polls. I count “other” parties as defined choices as well, these are usually parties not offered to respondents but mentioned spontaneously. The original support percentages from each poll, as published by the media, are listed in the table (click to enlarge).
I list all data used for recalculation because it helps understand differences between polls and allows verification in case of errors in data transfer or processing. Comparisons are not simple, as different agencies use different questionnaires, different technical methods, and present results differently.