With only 1.8 percent of voters' support according to polls, the once strong political party SDKU-DS has since been overtaken by Marian Kotleba's far-right People's Party-Our Slovakia in terms of popularity. This is according to the Tuesday edition of the Hospodárske Noviny daily. In its heyday, the party's former chairman Mikuláš Dzurinda became prime minister at the end of the Vladimir Mečiar era in 1998 and it was strong enough to entice former American president George W. Bush to Slovakia for a summit in 2005. Now however, the party is sitting near the bottom of the political popularity chart. According to Slovak Academy of Sciences political analyst Juraj Marušiak, a party that was created as a personal project of Mikuláš Dzurinda can't exist without its founder, with Dzurinda being replaced by Pavol Frešo. It appears that the first blow for SDKU was the fall of Iveta Radičová's government in October 2011. More damage was caused by the Gorilla corruption case later that year, involving a Slovak Intelligence Service file that appears to describe, among other things, the financing of political parties and bribery. For a time, the party managed to reverse the fall in support and maintain a level of 8 percent, but that was only temporary. According to political analyst Jan Baranek, the party's remaining supporters are mainly members, their families and the last of SDKU's hardcore fans.
