STA, 11 April 2022 - With a fortnight to go to the general election in Slovenia, the Freedom Movement is in the lead at 19.8%, 1.2 percentage points ahead of the ruling Democrats (SDS) in a poll conducted by Mediana for the newspaper Delo and commercial broadcaster POP TV.
The party of the ousted energy exec Robert Golob has gained 3.1 percentage points from March as the SDS added 1.8 points.
The opposition Social Democrats (SD) continue in third at 7.9%, down 1.5 points from March, ahead of the Left, which slipped back 1.4 points to 5.8%.
New Slovenia (NSi), the SDS's coalition partners, gained half a point to 5.5% and the LMŠ, the party of former PM Marjan Šarec, improved by 0.8 points to 4.6%.
Teetering on the verge of parliamentary threshold are five parties; the SAB of the former PM Alenka Bratušek is currently at 2.9% and Connecting Slovenia, an alliance that includes the coalition party Concretely, polled at 2.8%.
The non-parliamentary Pirate Party and Our Land of former Agriculture Minister Aleksandra Pivec both polled at 2.4% and the opposition National Party (SNS) mustered 2.3%.
The proportion of the decided respondents rose to 80% from 60% in March. Just over one in ten is still undecided (11.7%), 2.9% would not say which party they would vote for and 3.9% would vote for none.
Considering only those who are likely to cast their ballots, the Freedom Movement is projected to win 22.5%, the SDS 20.2%, the SD 9.5% and the Left 7.9%. The only other parties projected to make it to parliament are the NSi (5.8%) and the LMŠ (5%).
Asked about the current government's job, 48% rate it as negative or very negative and 27.7% rate it as positive or very positive with 22% giving it an average score.
President Borut Pahor remains the most popular politicians ahead of Robert Golob and three ministers: Janez Poklukar (health), Jernej Vrtovec (infrastructure) and Anže Logar (foreign affairs).
The poll was conducted among 1,027 respondents between 4 and 7 April.
