Less than perfect public opinion coverage in Slovakia

[Citajte post aj po slovensky]

“Less than perfect” could be the title of nearly post on polling coverage in Slovakia (hence, in many ways, this blog), and I shouldn’t be too critical but today both major papers went out of their way to mangle polling data.

In SME: “New party Most already clearly drawing Csaky voters” cites a Polis poll showing SMK at 5.7%. Not only does the paper fail to assess whether Polis does good polls (they use telephone surveys which are problematic and they haven’t released a party poll for a long time so we just don’t know for sure–but more on that in a later post) but it suggests a trend–and a causal relationship even–on the basis of one data point. We simply don’t know how SMK polled in previous Polis polls this year because there haven’t been any (at least I haven’t seen any and the paper certainly doesn’t provide them, using the 2006 elections as a frame of reference, as if that told us about polling trends). Other polls did show SMK higher in previous months, but all polls do not sample populations the same way, and even UVVM had trouble with even samples of the Hungarian population (http://www.pozorblog.com/?p=110), and showed a result for SMK as low as 6.7% in September of 2008. I’m not saying that Most-Hid is not pulling away SMK voters–in fact I suspect it is–but there’s no way of knowing it from the information we’ve got here.

In some ways worse, both SME and Pravda use the same data set to talk about the woes of HZDS. SME simply makes the same mistake as above, suggesting that “HZDS continues to decline” on the basis of only the one Polis poll, without attending to the fact that different polls show different levels for parties and ignoring the fact that this month’s FOCUS poll show’s HZDS rising by more than a point, from 4.2 to 5.3. Pravda’s story, “Meciar not bothered by polls“ does something rather worse, citing not only the Polis poll but also the numbers from FOCUS for April (4.8) and May (4.2) without feeling obliged to report the big increase reported in June. It is clear to me that HZDS is in trouble, (and these microtrends usually don’t add up to anything, so I wouldn’t argue that HZDS support is actually increasing), but citing the first two numbers of a sequence of three seems a bit beyond the pale when the third number tells the opposite story.

June 2009 FOCUS Results

FOCUS Monthly Report, June 2009

[Citajte post aj po slovensky]

With no more results from UVVM to kick around anymore and only irregular announcements from MVK, we’re left with FOCUS (quite a good poll but it was always better to have a comparison set) though “Median” appears for better or worse to be filling some of the void (more on this in a future post). As a result, I’ve temporarily adapted my monthly tracking graphs from UVVM to FOCUS and will use those until I can shift to a new visualization system this fall (with any luck).

UVVM+poll+data+ for +all+parties+ for the most recent +24+months+ in Slovakia
This overall long-term graph of poll results for FOCUS shows, amid the overall stability, several minor shifts, most notably a drop in Smer, fairly consistent over the last months (and also suggested in the final, unpublished UVVM numbers) from its highs at the beginning of the year. Given past disastrous guesses, I’ve withheld judgment on this, but, I’d now guess that January 2009 might prove to be Smer’s all time record high point (more on that in a later post). Also obvious is SDKU again separating itself from the pack in the middle, both because SDKU is doing better and because its closest competitor, SNS is doing worse. That middle “Gang of 5” parties all around 9% has largely disappeared now that SDKU is doing so much better and because HZDS is doing so much worse (though it has picked up slightly this month and moved back above the 5% threshold). In fact HZDS is now closer in preferences to KSS and SF than to any of the current parliamentary parties (Median’s numbers for HZDS are higher). The gang of 5 is likely to disappear altogether next month if Most-Hid manages to pick up a significant number of SMK voters. Over the coming months I will be reworking the system to include the many smaller parties that have emerged of late and about which FOCUS now asks explicitly. For the moment it is worth noting that the Greens (SZ) and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) now accompany KSS and SF in the 1-3% range whereas the Conservative Democrats (KDS), Civic Conservatives (OKS) and Civic Liberals (Liga) languish with ANO and HZD under 1%.
UVVM+poll+data+ for +all+parties+except+Smer+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

As a result of these shifts the long-term graph of poll results for coalition and non-coalition parties shows something of a narrowing, though not one that should give too much joy to the current parliamentary opposition, because a large and increasing of those “non-coalition” votes are actually votes for parties that are either not ideologically in sync with the current opposition (KSS) or parties that probably won’t make it into parliament unless there is some consolidation of small parties on the right (SaS, SF, Liga, ANO, KDS, OKS).

UVVM+poll+data+ for +coalition+support for the most recent +24+months+ in Slovakia

The long-term graph of poll results for (loosely defined) party “blocs” parties shows a steady drop over time for the more explicitly national parties (though recovering a bit in the last three months from record lows, with many of those voters apparently shifting over to Smer while the “right” remains relatively stable (this graph does not include the non-parliamentary parties on the right).

UVVM+poll+data+ for +party+'blocs'+ for the most recent +24+months+ in Slovakia

For all these slow shifts, Smer is in no danger yet of needing two coalition partners. One will do. Though speculation has involved the possibility that the “one” in question might be SDKU, I suspect that if things stay as they are, Fico’s partner will be whichever party is weakest and least likely to threaten Smer’s control.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +estimated+party+seat+distribution for the most recent +1+month+ in Slovakia

Multiple-poll+average+ for +estimated+party+seat+distribution for the most recent +24+months+ in Slovakia

Sorry, but I won’t be posting of full poll numbers this month or any time soon until I get the new system worked out. More soon on the polls by “Median”.

In HZDS is everything possible

Except, perhaps, victory.

Today brings more news from the ever-shrinking HZDS: last week it was Sergei Kozlik with criticism; this week it’s Zdenka Kramplova (see below). The cost of criticism is lower now that HZDS has several times breached the threshold of electability: why refrain from criticizing a party that won’t get elected anyway. Kozlik is safely in the European Parliament for another five years. Kramplova won’t make it onto the party list of a party that may not make it into parliament. For them, it seems, it may be time to leave the heavily-listing ship. To its credit, HZDS may have managed one of the steadiest declines of any party anywhere, as if the Titanic had sunk so slowly that it managed to limp into New York harbor. Except that for HZDS there is no harbor.

Meanwhile I learn new Slovak words every time SNS chair Jan Slota speaks. This time the comments concern Smer’s Monika Benova-Flasikova (SNS vice-chair Anna Belousovova had something equally sharp to say about Benova-Flasikova last week)

———————–

“Kramplova not yet out of HZDS”
http://www.sme.sk/c/4902546/kramplova-zatial-z-hzds-neodchadza.html
In (babel) English here:

“HZDS is like a hamster in a wheel.”
http://spravy.pravda.sk/kramplova-hzds-je-ako-skrecok-v-kruhu-dwk-/sk_domace.asp?c=A090623_113718_sk_domace_p29
Something resembling a translation here:

“Slota: Benova is a stupid [goose]”
http://hnonline.sk/slovensko/c1-37543370-slota-benova-je-hlupa-husicka
Google tries here

European Parliament Elections: The Wonder of Wikipedia

Wikipedia hosts not only basic factual information regarding the recent elections but excellent analysis as well, particularly regarding the relative efficacy this time of preference voting with 3 out of 13 getting positions thanks to preference voting: Zaborska (KDH), Mikolasik (KDH) and Paska (SNS–though helped perhaps by his famous Smer namesake?). Full information is here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament_election,_2009_(Slovakia)

Thanks to a reader for pointing it out and…I suspect…for providing the said analysis.

New Parties: SaS does the electoral math

Interesting post today from Richard Sulik, founder of Sloboda a Solidarita (trendily-colored logo is at left, found not on a party website but on a Facebook page), who responds to the charge from SDKU that SaS hurt the right by causing voters to “waste” votes on a party that did not make it over the threshold (http://richardsulik.blog.sme.sk/c/196401/SaS-oslabila-pravicu.html).

Sulik makes interesting arguments to suggest that SaS voters had good reason to vote in other ways and that they might not have voted at all, but he also makes good use of electoral math to make his point: he uses the electoral formula to show that reallocation of all SaS to SDKU would only have reallocated the number of seats that went to the right (SDKU would have gained one but KDH would have lost one) and thus that SaS did not impact the final result. The math looks solid to me and it is nice to see someone respond to arguments by looking at actual numbers and rules.

Nevertheless, it is not as easy to dismiss the SDKU arguments if they are seen as a warning about future elections. SaS did not have much impact in the European Parliament elections because there were so few seats at stake (13 [Correction, thanks reader “Richard”). Had it been a parliamentary election (and yes, many other things would have been different as well), Sulik’s argument is not quite as strong. I’ve reworked his numbers assuming the 150 seats of Slovakia’s parliament at stake. According to this, calcuation, SaS would have had a significant impact on SDKU votes (which would have gained 6 seats had it received all of the SaS votes) which is partially but not completely ameliorated by its impact on KDH and SMK (each of which would have lost a seat). In terms of coalition and opposition, this is almost a crucial difference: from clear parliamentary majority for Smer-SNS-HZDS to a bare majority that would hinge on the decision of only two deputies.

European Parliament Election Results if 150 seats (the Slovak Parliament) were available for election, according to two hypotheses:

Party	SaS supporters vote for SaS	SaS supporters vote for SDKU
Smer	56	53
SDKU	30	36
SMK	20	19
KDH	19	18
HZDS	16	15
SNS	9	9

Smer+HZDS+SNS	81	77
SDKU+SMK+KDH	69	73

Of course this is all theory, but the underlying debate is deeply relevant. The more the fragmentation on the right, the worse it is likely to do (as the left and the Slovak nationals demonstrated in 2002), but it is not a zero-sum game and it may be true that Sulik’s party brings out new voters. His ability to mobilize certainly is apparent in this election. The question for me is whether the best use of Facebook/youtube/social networks is enough to attract the 115,000 voters who will likely be necessary to get a party over the 5% threshold in 2010? The effort is certainly worth watching.

New Parties: Most-Hid now on display

For a party whose name looks in English to mean “least visible” this party will be getting a lot of attention over the coming year. Founded by Bela Bugar, former head of the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK), it may change Slovakia’s political landscape. Or maybe not.

The party’s name actually means “Bridge” in both Slovak and Hungarian. This allows a nice pun by SME–“Bugar’s people divide Hungarians with a bridge (http://www.sme.sk/c/4881801/bugarovci-rozdelili-madarov-mostom.html)–and prompts a lot of speculation by a lot of people about the nature of the new party. In fact, I suspect that it would be difficult for any predominantly Hungarian party to attract more than 1 or 2% of the Slovak electorate, though European election results from this weekend suggest that minority-focused parties can attract more than their ethnic share if the other parties are in bad enough odor. Nor do I think that the new party, despite its name, necessarily expects to gain a large number of Slovak voters. The debate here is primarily about what happens within the Hungarian community.

At first glance, creation of a second major party to represent Slovakia’s Hungarian minority seems extremely dangerous in a country where the electoral threshold is 5% and the Hungarian population hovers around 11%. The Slovak National Party (SNS) here represents the worst case scenario: in 2000 it split its 8% electorate almost exactly down the middle (disillusioning a few of its supporters in the process) between SNS and the “Real” SNS (PSNS) in such a way that each half got 3.5% and neither made it over the threshold. With this example in mind, the establishment of Most-Hid looks like a gamble, especially since, the split follows the SNS-PSNS in another key way: one party gets the more popular leader but little organization, while the other gets the organizational continuity and the uncharismatic new leader who threw out the other one. The difference, however, is significant as well: unlike SNS voters (who could always turn to HZDS) Hungarian voters do not have anywhere else to go, and given the minority status of Hungarians in Slovakia they are relatively well-habituated to turning out rather than staying home.

Given these conditions, what is the likely effect of Most-Hid on overall election results. Well in the first place, Bugar has been careful not to exclude the possibility of an electoral coalition with the party he just left, which would more or less return the situation to the pre-1998 situation in which two Hungarian parties competed for share of vote but approached elections in coalition. Even if the parties do go into the election separately, the results may actually not be catastrophic for the Hungarian population. The graph below starts with today’s electoral environment and makes the assumption that a combination of two Hungarian parties will receive 11%. (This is a conservative estimate, slightly below the party’s recent totals in the mid-11% range. Of course it is possible that bitter competition between two Hungarian parties could turn voters off, but it is just as possible that having more defined choices might bring some Hungarians back to the voting booth and, just maybe, that Bugar could attract a few Slovaks, so 11% is probably a bit low.) Under current conditions, a party with 11% would gain 19 seats, one short of SMK’s take in 2006. For the sake of argument I assume that each point gained by Most-Hid reduces the support for SMK by the same amount and then calculate the number of seats according to the current Slovak method for alloting parliamentary seats:

First, and obvious but it should be said, unless the Hungarian party electorate falls below 10%, the emergence of Most-Hid won’t replicate the SNS-PSNS mutual destruction. One of the two parties will gain representation. The next-worst-case scenario not impossible but it is also not as grim as it might seem because of the workings of the electoral system. If Most-Hid (or SMK) were to get 4.99% and the other party 6.01%, the total share of parties would certainly fall short of the possible score, but not by as much as one might suppose since, with fewer parties above the threshold, parties get more seats per vote. As a result, the likey minimum score for total Hungarian representation is 12 seats. Furthermore in half of the scenarios above (I cannot say which is most likely), Hungarian representation does not drop by more than two.

The fact that the creation of Most-Hid threatens a drop but not an elimination of Hungarians in parliament may help to explain Bugar’s calcuations. The step won’t ruin his reputation and increases his options. It is not impossible that Most might be able to attract a significant share of SMK support and become the dominant of the two partners, allowing Bugar to dictate terms, allowing the possibility of an electoral coalition with SMK, even leading to the ouster of Csaky from SMK and a re-unification under Bugar.

Add to this the probability (diminished slightly but still extremely high) that Smer will form the next government and the fact that some within Smer have already responded positively to Most-Hid’s creation (http://spravy.pravda.sk/smer-chvali-bugara-sdku-stoji-za-csakym-d94-/sk_domace.asp?c=A090610_085204_sk_domace_p23) and the creation of the party actually looks like a well-calculated risk. Even the timing is relatively good: a year ahead of elections is enough for the party to build an organization but not too long for the party to languish in opposition obscurity.

Smer may be the real winner in all this: if Most makes it over the threshold, the number of possible coalition partners increases and therefore so does Smer’s bargaining power. If Most does not make it over the threshold but draws away a significant number of voters from SMK, then the seats SMK might have won are redistributed upward and some of them will go to Smer.

The real loser in this are those political scientists (by which I mean myself) who argued that SMK’s strong internal organization and decision-making mechanisms made it more stable and less likely to fragment. But perhaps those same researchers can recover by shifting their focus to study new parties.

—–
One interesting side note: at the time of with the rather poorly-planned announcement of Palko’s KDS, which at the time had neither a website, logo or even name, I have been conscious of how politicians in Slovakia miss chances for using early publicity to establish a brand that no private firm would ever miss. So on the day the rumors about Most-Hid finally reached the daily press I checked to see if anybody had established a Most-Hid website. No, but they did do so by the following day, though the website is empty except for the logo.

Interestingly if I read Whois.com right, the party had already claimed the domain name about 3 weeks ago, at a time when discussions between Bugar and Csaky were still going on! Plus two points for prior planning. Minus one point for good faith bargaining.

Domain-name         hid-most.sk [and most-hid.sk]
Admin-name          Websupport, s.r.o.
Admin-address       c.d.457, Kysucky Lieskovec 02334
Admin-telephone     0904/306 081, 0904/306 081, 0904/306 081
Last-update         2009-05-16
Valid-date          2010-05-12
Domain-status       DOM_OK

European Parliament Elections, Slovakia 2009

A few initial thoughts (perhaps my only thoughts) on Slovakia’s Europarliament Elections.
In general there are few surprises here: Smer wins, SDKU follows at at a great distance, along with SMK and KDH. Perhaps the only superficial surprise is the apparent reversal of numbers for SNS and HZDS, but even this is not particularly surprising in light of other characteristics of these parties. As usual, it helps to look at the results against the background of polls and the previous Euroelection. Full election results with comparisons to 2004 and to various polls are here and in a table at the end.

First, how does this look in comparison to the last (i.e. first) Euroelections in Slovakia, held in 2004. Turnout appears to be slightly up, but slightly up from the lowest in Europe is still just the lowest in Europe. In terms of party results, I’ve created a series of charts that array the parties on the Y (vertical) axis in terms of past performance, according to a variety of markers and the X (horizontal) axis in terms of present performance in elections. Do that for the 2004 and 2009 results and here’s what you get:

As is obvious, Smer does far better than before (over 30% compared with its disappointing under 20% in 2004), picking up 5 seats instead of its previous 3 and far outpacing the rest. SDKU is next with results almost identical to those of 2004. Following a bit behind in a tight cluster are MK, KDH and HZDS, all performing worse than in 2004, by various margins and for various reasons (but more on that later) and then just above the 5% threshold, SNS. All parties currently with seats in Slovakia’s parliament get Europarliament seats and no non-parliamentary parties make it across the threshold).

Clearly, by this standard 0f 2004 we have a major victory for Smer. But there are other metrics. A second way to look at this is to compare it to the most recent poll, does it beat expectations? By that standard, this is what we get:

Smer and SNS do worse than expected, SNS by a slightly smaller raw percentage but a much higher relative share. SMK does slightly worse than expected while KDH, HZDS and SAS do better. What explains these differences? Two of the three parties that did worse than expected also have the reputation (backed up by some research I’ve done) for weaker than average organizations. In a low turnout election, organization makes a difference. KDH and HZDS both have better than average organizations and and relatively stable, older than average electorates who dutifully turn out to vote. SMK is also fairly well organized, but the party is currently in the midst of major turmoil (more here and more from me later). The interesting addition to this list is SaS–Sulik’s Freedom and Solidarity. New parties in Slovakia have rarely developed organizations that could push turnout in this kind of election, but Sulik appears to have made effective use of online social networks and other similar structures to mobilize young, educated voters who might otherwise stay home. The bad news for SaS is that they just barely missed the chance to shake things up by getting a seat that would gain them some visibility and the same techniques will not have the same impact in higher turnout parliamentary elections in 2010. Still, SaS will comes out of this strengthened vis-a-vis other small social-liberal parties (SF and Liga with quite bad performances, and the Greens not moving beyond their very small base) and has an opportunity to pick up the “disaffected SDKU” vote. OKS-KDS did better than the previous year: Palko’s presence helped, no doubt, as the only party leader on the ballot of any party, but the party’s inability to push much beyond 2% in this election does not bode well for 2010. KSS continues to hover around 1.5%, as it does in the polls, without much immediate hope of revival.

Finally, we can look at these results against the general recent performance of parties at the national level, averaging scores from FOCUS polls (now the only major one left that reports results fully and regularly) since the beginning of the year:

The results here are not wildly different from the previous graph, but it does suggest some cause for concern by Smer. A 32% result in the Euroelections is great if it is double that of your next largest competitor, but slightly worrisome if it is 14% lower than the party’s average for the year to date. Of course this is a low turnout election (this happened to Smer before in 2004, and even worse) but 2010 may not be particularly high either. As with the presidential election, the results suggest that even with rather poor political play, the right wing manages to do better in elections than in the opinion polls (which show SDKU, SMK and KDH hovering around 30%-35%. For now Smer is so far ahead that this makes little difference, but the party cannot afford to be complacent, especially, unlike its predecessor HZDS which once found itself in a similar position, Smer does not have such a strong organizational base to fall back upon.

The actual numbers are available online at Google Docs:

http://http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pdhlCClsiyAMi39bLFpY_Zg&single=true&gid=3&output=html

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

<br />

——–

The main points are above, but in the process of making them, I made a few others that I don’t want to waste. First, the polls v. results that parallels the one above.

Here we see Smer’s slightly worse-than-expected performance and the dramatically better-than-expected performance of SDKU and KDH in 2004. This is even more apparent in the poll average graph:

By this standard, 2004 really was a negative shock for Smer and a hugely unexpected bonus for KDH and SDKU and even to some extent for MK. Here we see the “party organization” factor in full effect.

Finally, a graph that has nothing to do with the Euroelections but was calculated incidentally. Still, it’s striking in what it shows:

This blog has been talking about shifts in public opinion for some time, but this provides a great time-lapse image. Smer is way up. SDKU is up (though up over its polling numbers while in government rather than its actual election figures) as is SNS (though in 2004 it was coming off a disastrous couple of years after the PSNS split. Its historical figures are actually around this level). KDH is remarkably stable over time and has been since the mid-1990’s. The losers are the small parties: KSS and ANO falling from electoral viability to near-death and HZDS falling from near-front runner to barely viable. Amid all of this perhaps the most striking thing to me is the negative movement of MK. This is a party which, except for actuarial reasons, should not move at all and yet it has fallen by several points. Some of this may be the loss of a few Slovak voters who in 2004 still saw it as a clean alternative to the other members of Dzurinda’s then-coalition, but the party’s drop over the last 2 years suggests that it is due to poor politics. Now we shall see what happens when there is an alternative party, but that is a topic for the next post.

European Parliament Elections: OKS-KDS

A reader (for all I know, since I haven’t enabled the statistics package on this blog, the reader) notes the OKS-KDS ties to Libertas and asks about the chances to break the 5% threshold in the upcoming European elections. My rather limited response:

This will be KDS’s first meaningful electoral test, since in the presidential elections KDS’s nearest competitor, KDH did not have a candidate. It is good news that KDS is that it is running its best-known face, Vladimir Palko, who gets a lot of media coverage as a Slovak MP, but that’s the best news I can think of. As far as I know, the party does not have any meaningful organization on the ground and not even, (so far as I can find) a website (and this party’s potential voters aren’t really web-readers, the absence is a sign, I suspect, of other organizational deficiencies). Perhaps more notably, KDS has failed to get any opinion poll traction in the last year. When it’s not explicitly included on the list of parties in polls, nobody mentions it spontaneously (“other” was for several months in several polls almost completely empty) and even when it is included, it hovers below 1%. Perhaps worse, in the big picture, when Palko and Miklosko announced the creation of KDS the preferences for the party from which they split, KDH, did not drop at all.

OKS, for its part, may actually be slightly more organized (though that’s not saying much). It has a few local government councilors and a website but I used to pass it’s empty, small office in Bratislava last year and rarely saw any activity and the website shows little beyond Bratislava. OKS polled 1% in the 2004 Euroelections, and the party haven’t done anything to help itself since.

In addition to this, the field of small parties on the right is now remarably crowded and includes not only OKS-KDS but also 1) Slobodne Forum, 2) Sloboda a Solidarita, 3) Liga, and even 4) the Demokraticka Strana (judging by its website an even paler shadow of its former pale self) and 5) Simko’s Misia 21.

The degree of alternatives raises a final, minor, question about the compatibility of OKS and KDS. OKS may bring a little bit of organization; KDS brings a little bit of visibility (with its 4 MPs). But at the same time, in a crowded market of small “right” parties, the combination might send some voters elsewhere. Slovakia’s “right” is a mix of cultural conservatives and economic liberals (in the European sense) who do not always get along. Among the mainstream parties, SDKU tends to attract the economic liberals and cultural liberals; KDH tends to attract the cultural conservatives while supporting some aspects of economic liberalism. KDS has pushed hard on the cultural conservativism question, with strong Christian overtones whereas OKS, while not ignoring moral questions, seems shows more of an orientation toward an Anglophile conservatism rather than a religious one. The party has few enough voters that the question may not be relevant, but I wonder whether Palko will push any OKS voters into the more economically liberal arms of Liga or SaS.

All in all, I don’t disagree fundamentally with Peter Horvath’s assessment that OKS-KDS has a better chance than many of the other smaller parties, (http://www.panorama.sk/go/news/news.asp?lang=en&sv=2&id=19899) but that that is not saying much at all. In a regular parliamentary election, I’d predict maybe 1.5%. In a very low turnout Euroelection funny things can happen. KDH significantly outperformed polling in the 2004 Euroelections, but the limited evidence I have leads me to think that this was because the party had a relatively strong organization at local levels. KDS did not acquire those organizational assets, but KDS’s small electorate likely includes some of those high-turnout voters and maybe a few local organizers loyal to Palko, so the party may do a bit better than it would in a normal parliamentary election.

Euroblindness II: Curse of the Habsburgs?

I could not bring myself to watch last night’s semi-finals of the Eurovision Song Contest (the finals will be enough, thank you) but I was amused to find this morning that virtually my entire region of study was wiped out in the voting over the last several days. Thanks to a Wikipedia map (wow, that was fast) it’s graphically apparent that not one country from the Visegrad 4 made it past the semifinals. Slovenia also didn’t make it and Austria (on the map in non-participant yellow) didn’t even bother. The only other Euroregion to be similarly shut out was Benelux.

As a social scientists, I must ask why? The Danube appears to have something to do with this, and already yesterday Pravda prepared Slovaks for their unfair defeat by pointing out the non-musical charms of semi-final rivals and the academic qualifications of Slovakia’s participants. But I’m putting my money on a different causal factor:

Mozart's travels in Europe

Past visits by Mozart (see above) appear to inoculate a country against selection to the Eurovision finals (Germany, France and England have automatic bids) and in some cases (Luxemburg, Italy, Austria, even from desire to enter.

Regardless of the causal factors, this spares everybody the awkwardness of having Slovakia’s 12 points go to Hungary and for that everybody can be grateful, except maybe Jan Slota of the Slovak National Party (who could use a national distraction from other troubles).

April 2009 Final Poll Comparisons

There is an old Communist-era joke in which one character asks the other, “Why weren’t you at the last party meeting?” and the other responds “If I had known it was the last party meeting, not only would I have shown up but I would have brought a bottle of champagne.” In a similar–if more unfortunate vein–when I talk about the last UVVM survey of public opinion in Slovakia, I mean the last one. The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic has stopped the monthly public opinion polling on parties that gave Slovakia one of the most robust public-opinion tracking data of any country in postcommunist Europe. The office has been discussing this for over a year (the director of the office, Ludmilla Benkovicova, discussed this with me in an interview in June 2008 and it was in the air well before then) but it is awkward for all concerned that the polling ceased precisely at a point when, according to a report by Pravda (http://spravy.pravda.sk/hzds-a-sns-nepadli-popularitu-straca-len-smer-faz-/sk_domace.asp?c=A090425_120119_sk_domace_p23) the ruling party, Smer, allegedly received its lowest support in over a year-and-a-half, and the ruling coalition allegedly received its lowest support since the June 2006 election. I write “allegedly” because in addition to ending the party preference polls, the Statistical Office also embargoed the results of April poll that included those numbers and we have them in the public realm only because Pravda claims to have obtained a copy (which it also claims that Benkovicova did not deny).

It is hard to know what to make of Benkovicova’s decision since she cites an EU directive with which I am not familiar and since it is possible to make a good argument against government sponsored polls as the centerpiece of a country’s polling infrastructure. At the same time, UVVM has done excellent work and has seemingly remained immune from political pressure. Furthermore, while the circumstances and motives of the current decision might be entirely different, it is also worth noting that the last time UVVM stopped public release of polling information on political parties, it was during the government of Vladimir Meciar. The polls came back after Meciar left. We shall see if they do so again after Fico’s departure.

Because of the informal nature of the release of the UVVM April data, we only have a partial range of figures (none of the smaller parties or the share of non-voters) but fortunately we also have numbers from FOCUS for the most recent three months. There are also numbers from the firm Median but I am hesitant to put these into the broader model as they lack the track record of the others. I will try to do some more analysis of Median numbers and see over the next few month whether these are worthy of inclusion.

So what do we find. The graph averaging the last 24 months of polling results from multiple sources shows a drop for Smer back to the plateau it reached during the final months of 2008, the first time since the 2006 election that Smer has seen three consecutive months of drop.

2:|||||||||||||||||||||||| Multiple-poll+average+ for +all+parties+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

The drop comes off a record high, however, and so the news is not terrible, especially since while UVVM numbers showed a big drop (to 40%), FOCUS numbers showed the party increasing slightly.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +Smer+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

This graph averaging the last 4 months of polling results from multiple sources shows this in more detail and suggests a minor shift in the overall dynamics of party competition. Whereas originally there had been 4 groups of parties (Smer on its own above 40, SDKU and SNS between 10 and 15, HZDS, KDH and SMK between 5 and 10 and then a group of parties under 3, there are now 4 different groups (Smer alone, still above 40, SDKU in clear second above 15, SNS, KDH and SMK between 5 and 10 and parties under 3.

UVVM+poll+data+ for +all+parties+except+Smer+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

This graph of recent polling results for SDKU shows a strong recovery–some of the highest poll numbers SDKU has ever had–perhaps because of the relatively strong performance by its presidential candidate, Iveta Radicova–but this bump may not long survive Radicova’s return to relative obscurity.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +SDKU+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

This graph of recent results for SNS shows a consistent, slow drop even before the most recent ministerial scandals. I am curious whether the apparently high levels of clientelism within the party can dislodge even its most passionately anti-Hungarian voters.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +SNS+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

The wildcard here is HZDS. In a February blog entry, I wrote that

“there is a strong chance that the party will post at least one or two results below the 5% threshold in the months just before elections, a symbolic result that could further hurt the party’s chances.”

That moment came sooner than I expected, at least in FOCUS surveys and so significant was the drop that I had to change the scale of the HZDS graph.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +HZDS+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

HZDS has a strong cadre of loyal voters–stronger than most other parties of similar or even larger size, but at present the party’s slide is accelerating rather than slowing. The current numbers put HZDS soon in the under 3% group. The best case scenario for the party is somehow to hang on near the bottom of the 5%-10% group.
In broader terms these changes suggest a small closure of the gap between opposition and coalition parties, but the gap is still almost as large as the percentage of the opposition parties themselves. It would take a lot to close the gap completely though of course “a lot” is what the current world economic crisis threatens to deliver.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +coalition+support for the most recent +24+months+ in Slovakia

The long-term graph of poll results for (loosely defined) party “blocs” parties shows parallel declines in the “left” and “Slovak national” blocs of parties and some aims for the opposition “right” bloc, but this again is not nearly enough for a change of government.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +party+blocs+ for the most recent +24+months+ in Slovakia

This month’s distribution of parliamentary seats shows Smer still in a position to form a one-party government with any partner, though its most likely partner, the Slovak National Party, is the one which has seen the dismissal of two ministers and a variety of other criticisms in a short period (though a variety of Slovak analysists suggest that the party needs its government posts (and the wealth to which they give access) too much to complain (http://spravy.pravda.sk/koalicia-vydrzi-sns-potrebuje-zostat-vo-vlade-zhoduju-sa-analytici-1pv-/sk_domace.asp?c=A090505_170429_sk_domace_p23)

Multiple-poll+average+ for +estimated+party+seat+distribution for the most recent +1+month+ in Slovakia

Multiple-poll+average+ for +estimated+party+seat+distribution for the most recent +24+months+ in Slovakia

And finally, because they did not fit into the narrative above (if such a disjointed string can be described as a narrative), a few other specific poll numbers.

The graph of recent results for MK shows stability and a degree of convergence among polls at around 8.5%. The surveys were taken before Bela Bugar left the party’s parliamentary delegation, however, so we shall see over the next two months whether that has any effect. We shall see over the next year whether we have a full split on our hands here. If so, the normally solid representation of Hungarian parties in parliament may come under threat.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +MK+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

This graph of recent results for KDH shows convergence as well with little change in average over time. This is the one party to which nothing has happened over the last several months so the stasis is not unexpected. Multiple-poll+average+ for +KDH+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

The graph of recent results for KSS shows a drop, particularly noteworthy since FOCUS numbers which usually put the party around 2% put it here under 1% for the first time in about a year.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +KSS+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

Finally the graph of recent results for SF shows a steady rise. Whether this party is a contender for 2010 (I predict that some pro-market social liberal rival to SDKU will flirt with the threshold in the months before the next parliamentary election but I don’t know that it will be SF, though that party has a better chance than some. It has something of an organization and some name recognition, while neither Liga nor SaS appears to have yet found legs, but there may be another contender out there somewhere as well.

Multiple-poll+average+ for +SF+ for the most recent +4+months+ in Slovakia

FOCUS numbers show a stable 1.1% or so for the Green party (ZS) in the last two month, and really low numbers (between 0.1% and 0.5% for Liga and KDS. OKS actually appeared above 0.0% for the first time in years (perhaps because FOCUS is asking about it now), and its emergence significantly undercut KDS (if anything can be called significant under 1% or understood as anything other than random noise.)

As always, the actual polling numbers are available online at Google Docs:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pdhlCClsiyAMi39bLFpY_Zg