On Sunday, the junior coalition Slovak National Party announced that its chair and Speaker of Parliament Andrej Danko would not run for president. Moreover, the party will not have any candidate in the presidential election this spring. On the same day, the results of the first relevant survey were published. The European Commissioner for the Energy Union Maroš Šefčovič, running for the largest governing SMER-SD party, and the scientist Robert Mistrík with the support of opposition Freedom and Solidarity party shared the first place with 16.6%.
Third place in the poll went to Štefan Harabin (11.7%). He was followed by Most-Híd party chairman Béla Bugár (10.1%), Zuzana Čaputová (9%), ĽSNS chairman Marian Kotleba (8.2%), Milan Krajniak (7%), Frantisek Miklosko (6.7%), and Eduard Chmelár (2.3%). All other candidates had less than 2-percent support. The poll was conducted between January 16-23 and also included Andrej Danko, who will not run.
