By: Sara Rančigaj / Nova24tv
A poll conducted for Nova24TV in April by Parsifal showed that serial interpellations filed by opposition parties and numerous organised attacks by foreign media had no impact on the largest government party SDS, as it leads convincingly. Among the voters who will definitely take part in the elections, it has as much as 37.5 percent support. It is followed in second place by the SD party with 20.3 percent of the vote, and in third place by the LMŠ party with 12.4 percent of the vote. Support for the SDS and SD has risen slightly, while support for the LMŠ has declined, meaning that the KUL coalition has still failed to increase support. According to the political analyst, however, there are more and more initiatives that are trying to unite Slovenia, such as the Slovenian People’s Party and the New People’s Party. The latter would cross the parliamentary threshold at elections this Sunday, while the SAB party would drop out. As it turns out, voters are also convinced they would vote for those parties that try to connect rather than tear apart. Support for the government has also grown.
The Parsifal public opinion polling agency conducted a public opinion poll for our media house between May 10th and 13th on a sample of 726 respondents. This time as well, the respondents were asked which of the Slovenian political parties they would choose if the elections were held this Sunday.
If the elections were held this Sunday, the majority of voters would give their support to the SDS party (21.0 percent), followed by SD (11.5 percent), LMŠ (7.9 percent), Levica (5.0 percent), and NSi (4.6 percent). 35.8 percent of voters are currently undecided.
If the elections to the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia were held this Sunday, the SDS would celebrate, receiving 32.7 percent of the votes. In second place would be the SD party, which would be elected by 17.8 percent of voters, followed by the List of Marjan Šarec with 12.4 percent of the votes, and the Levica with 7.8 percent of the votes. Nova Slovenija was in fifth place, with 7.1 percent of the votes, and the parliamentary threshold would also be crossed by the Slovene People’s Party and the New People’s Party of Slovenia with 6.1 percent of the votes. The parties Naša Dežela, SAB, SNS, DeSUS, Pirati, SMC, and Dobra država would not get parliamentary seats.
The SDS party leads with a big advantage
The survey showed the results of those who voted and will definitely attend the elections. In these, the turnout estimate that they will participate in the elections is rated with the highest score of 5. Even after these results, the SDS party is in the first place with a big advantage. As many as 37.5 percent would trust their vote to them. The result undoubtedly puts SDS in a huge lead, as the SD, who came in second, would get almost half as many votes but slightly more than last time, that is 20.3 percent. The List of Marjan Šarec would get 12.4 percent of the votes, and the Levica party 6.3 percent of the votes. Support for the Slovene People’s Party and the New People’s Party of Slovenia rose to 4.3 percent of the votes, while support for Nova Slovenija slightly fell (4.2 percent of the vote). The parties Naša Dežela, SAB, SNS, DeSUS, Pirati, SMC, and Dobra država would not get parliamentary seats.
Compared to the previous poll, the support of SDS and SD increased by three percentage points, while the support of the party LMŠ slightly decreased (by 3.5 percentage points). Support for NSi also fell slightly, while the Slovenian People’s Party and the New People’s Party have ever higher support. The DeSUS party has not recovered since the arrival of Karl Erjavec and the continuation of disagreements, but this time it would only cross the parliamentary threshold by a whisker. Support for the SAB party continues to fall. As can be seen from the graph below, which shows the trend of fluctuations in customer support, support for the SDS party has increased significantly compared to January. With the SD and LMŠ parties, however, we can see that after the fall, support has levelled off compared to January.
“It follows that the support for the largest parties in the country is stable and that the movements from month to month are small and negligible,” explains political scientist Miro Haček. As he observes below, the data also show that it is less and less likely that the forthcoming convocation of the National Assembly will be as highly fragmented as the current one, where as many as nine parliamentary parties are present. “It seems more likely that there will only be five or six political parties in the next convocation, which would also be better in terms of transparency and stability,” he added. He sees the ability of the likely relative winner SDS in forming a government to largely depend on the unifying wisdom and abilities of the central political forces, both those slightly to the right of the center (SLS, NSLS, Zeleni) and those to the left of the center (SMC, Dobra država, Party of Aleksandra Pivec, Naša dežela).
Political analyst Miloš Čirić noticed some time ago that support is rising for those parties that want to unite Slovenia. While, for example, the SAB party is losing its voters, on the other hand, the Slovene People’s Party and the New People’s Party are receiving increasing support. “In contrast to the opposition parties, the Slovene People’s Party and the New People’s Party, which are trying to unite Slovenia with the initiative, are receiving much higher support,” Čirić told us in one of the previous polls. According to opinion polls, Slovenes want integration policies, unlike the one that can be seen at KUL.
Support for the government began to grow
Support for the government remains stable and has started to rise again in recent months. “It is difficult to say for what reason, this may also be due to constant attacks on the government, which is a scientifically well-proven frequent effect of a negative campaign when voters begin to cultivate positive emotions towards the victim, especially if the impression is unwarranted,” Hačel observed. In addition to the negative propaganda itself, in his opinion, the growth of support for the government is also influenced by recent reform plans, such as tax legislation.
Methodological sample:
The survey included 762 respondents, of which 50.1 percent were women. The average age was 51.8 years and the standard deviation was 15.9 years. The majority of respondents were from the oldest age group (43.8 percent), the middle age group was slightly less represented (36.1 percent), and the youngest age group was the least represented (20.1 percent). Most respondents have completed high school (34.5 percent), followed by those with completed higher education or more (27.9 percent), 22.7 percent of respondents have a vocational school, and 15 percent of respondents have completed primary or incomplete primary school. Most respondents come from a village or hamlet (54.3 percent), followed by a town (29.5 percent) and a smaller town (16.2 percent). Most respondents come from the Osrednjeslovenska region (25.8 percent), followed by the Podravska (15.6 percent), and Savinjska (12.1 percent) regions.