UVVM Monthly Report

This overall long-term graph of poll results for UVVM shows Smer back up to a near majority in preferences and with a majority of parliamentary seats while the opposition fades back toward the 30% mark it reached in July and previously in January of 2007.  With the exception of Smer’s rise, however, these numbers are not reflected in this month’s FOCUS poll (which for the first time in my memory beat UVVM to the punch) and which I will discuss in the next post.  This month the FOCUS and UVVM data are at odds in many areas, with one of the highest levels of disagreement between the two (excluding Smer) in the past 18 months, but more on that later.

This short-term graph of poll results for UVVM minus Smer shows a reversal in the positions of SDKU and SNS, suggesting that the polarization on Hungary-related issues may be working (FOCUS does not show quite the same trend, but again more on that later).  HZDS continues a minor slide with its second lowest score ever in a UVVM poll (though in FOCUS the party holds its own this month).

Adding these up, the strong month for Smer and SNS minus a slight decline in HZDS gives the coalition a near-record high, just shy of 7 out 0f every 10 voters in Slovakia expressing a preference.  The mirror image non-coalition parties drop to 3 in 10.

The same basic trends apply to blocs.  The rise for SNS counters the drop for HZDS for stability in the “Slovak National” bloc while the drop in SDKU hurts the “Right.”

And a few percentage points here or there makes a huge difference in the nature Slovakia’s potential future government: were these election results, Smer would need no other partners, a development that could significantly reshape the nature of Slovakia’s politics.

As always, the actual polling numbers are available online at Google Docs:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pdhlCClsiyAMi39bLFpY_Zg

And the most recent three months are below in tabular format (using “iframe” which may not work on all browsers).

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