Ljubljana, 8 January - The STA reports that the opposition Slovenian Democratic Party (Slovenska demokratska stranka, SDS) now tops the party ratings in the latest poll by Delo, followed by the party of presidential race runner-up Marjan Šarec, which headed the poll a month ago.
The SDS gained as much as 3.6 percentage points compared with the month before to poll at 15.8%, nearly three points ahead of the Marjan Šarec List, which lost 2.8 points to 12.9%.
The coalition Social Democrats (Socialni demokrati, SD) in third lost half a point to 12.1%, whereas its senior coalition partner, the Modern Centre Party (Stranka modernega centra, SMC; formerly Stranka Mira Cerarja, SMC), gained 2.5 points to 8% in fourth spot.
The opposition New Slovenia – Christian People's Party (Nova Slovenija – Krščanski demokrati, NSi) polled at 6.5%, followed by the junior coalition Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) and the opposition Left, which are tied on 4.8%.
The National Party (SNS) made some mark among the non-parliamentary parties (2.6%), while the rest polled at around 1%.
Roughly one out of four of those questioned were undecided or unwilling to cast their vote.
The government's latest voter approval rating is 2.57 on the scale of one to five, and the National Assembly's 2.51. Both scores are slightly better than the month before.
President Borut Pahor continues to top the popularity ranking of politicians ahead of Šarec and European Commissioner Violeta Bulc.
The poll was carried out by Delo Stik between 3 and 6 January on a sample involving interviews with 1,015 adults.
