On March 5, 2016, Slovakia will hold Parliamentary elections; the ninth parliamentary elections since the Velvet revolution in 1989. They are to cost the state almost €11 million. More than 4.4 million people are eligible to vote and almost 70,000 of them will be first-time voters. Slovaks living abroad have their voting rights as well, and more than 20,000 of them sent in applications to vote from abroad. Their votes could come to approximately 1 percent of the entire voter turnout, estimates suggest. 23 parties, movements and coalitions are running in this race. As of February 20, the media will no longer be allowed to inform the public of preferences and poll ratings, therefore we now present you with the latest rundown of the 23 political parties and their preferences compiled by the polling agency Polis Slovakia for the press agency SITA. Their poll was carried out between February 6 and 14 on more than 1600 respondents over 18 years of age. They asked the following question: "Which political party, movement or coalition will you be voting for in the parliamentary elections on March 5, 2016"?
These are their findings: The current governmental party SMER-SD would win with over 38%. Coming second would be the party Sieť (Network) with 10.5 %, followed by the Most-Híd party with 9.2 %. The following parties too would pass the 5% threshold and thus make it to parliament: SNS (Slovak National Party) with over 9 %, the OĽANO (Ordinary People) party with 7 %, the Christian democrats (KDH) with over 6.5 % and just barely scraping the surface of the 5 % threshold would be the Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS). The following parties would not make it parliament according to this poll: SMK - 4 %, Sme rodina - Boris Kollár - 3.6 %, the party of Marian Kotleba - Ľudová strana Naše Slovensko - 2.5 %, the Communist party of Slovakia (Komunistická strana Slovenska) - 1.4 %, SDKÚ-DS - 1.3 %, SKOK - 0.6 %, the parties TIP and Šanca would gain 0.3 %. The parties Odvaha, Priama demokracia and Vzdor would not make it to Parliament either. The poll further shows no support for the following parties: Strana moderného Slovenska, Koalícia spoločne za Slovensko, Strana zelených Slovenska, Demokratická strana and Maďarská kresťansko-demokratická aliancia.
The quoted preferences of the Polis agency were calculated based on a 60% voter turnout. 26% of the respondents were undecided and 14% said they would not come to the polls. Findings of other renowned polling agencies such as Fokus, MVK and Median show minor differences in the preferences. Their estimates of the leading SMER-SD party vary within a range of 2% - 6% and the order in which other parties would succeed slightly differs as well.
