Category: political parties

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:

pozorblog-euroelection-result-2004-v-result-2009.png

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:

pozorblog-euroelection-final-polls-v-result-2004.png

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:

pozorblog-euroelection-poll-avg-v-result-2009.png

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).

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——–

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.

pozorblog-euroelection-final-poll-v-result-2004.png

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:

pozorblog-euroelection-poll-avg-v-result-2004.png

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:

pozorblog-euroelection-poll-avg-2004-v-2009.png

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.

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

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

<br />

2009 Presidential Election, First week of March

 I should probably post something on the presidential election campaign in Slovakia, though there is not much to say, both because the race has been extremely stable and because I simply have not been able to find much polling.  FOCUS has not yet offered numbers and UVVM only started this month (as far as I can tell) and so we’ve only got irregularly and incompletely reported numbers from MVK.  Still, that is something.  The race as we know it appears below.  Gasparovic has consistently led the field, hovering around 50% in every poll except a very early one in 2007 that included likely competitors from the Slovak national bloc (Meciar and Slota).  Radicova, by contrast has hovered around 35% (except in that first poll at a time when she had less name recognition).  Other candidates have gone and come, but Martinakova of Slobodne Forum appears to have a solid 5% and Miklosko of KDS just a bit less.  At the bottom comes the trio of Bollova (former KSS), Sidor (KSS) and Melnik (HZDS) with 2% or less.

Poll results for Presidential Candidates, Full Field, in Slovakia, 2009

Comparing these candidates with their party results is not always easy or useful but it does lend certain insight into the underlying dynamics of the country’s politics.  Gasparovic has polled 50% when his own former party HZD has languished below 2%. Clearly Gasparovic gains most of his support from Smer and SNS (though he slightly underpolls the combined strength of those two parties).  Gasparovic may also gain some support from voters of his previous former party, HZDS.  This is mitigated to some degree by HZDS chair Vladimir Meciar’s idiosyncratic campaign against Gasparovic, whom he regards as a traitor to his party, but while this campaign may cost Gasparovic some votes, it certainly has not been successful in luring voters to HZDS’s own candidate, Melnik, who stands at 2%, less than a third of HZDS’s 6% (and it shows HZDS’s continued decline).  Bollova and Sidor together attract more votes than KSS, but only by about a half of a percentage point, so it does not seem that these alternatives on the statist left draw many voters away from Gasparovic.

Perhaps the most interesting question is on the right.  The parties of the right (including the Hungarians) consistently poll about 35%, about equal to Radicova’s total, but Radicova likely shares the vote of that bloc with Martinakova and Miklosko who together poll around 10%.  This means that either Radicova or the other two (or all three) pull some voters from uncommitted voters.  Martinakova outpolls her party by about 3-4%) and Miklosko’s party has only about 1% in the polls, so virtually all of his vote comes from partisans of other parties.  It is difficult without the actual data to assess the ebb and flow here, but it would appear that the presidential candidates of the right-wing parties are, by a solid margin, more popular than the parties themselves, and this suggests some room for growth on the right side of the political spectrum (but only if those parties were to seek out new leadership, something that KDH and SMK–but not SDKU–may currently be thinking about).

The potential gain becomes most obvious in those polls that pit Gasparovic directly against Radicova.  In these, surveys (of which we have only two, both conducted by MVK) Radicova draws closer to Gasparovic, gaining an average of 8% compared to Gasparovic’s gain of 5%.  This is to be expected since the candidates closer to Radicova (Martinakova and Miklosko) have more support than those closer to Gasparovic (Bollova, Sidor, Melnik), but it is still noteworthy since it suggests that a moderately charismatic candidate of the right can gain significantly larger numbers of voters than do the parties of the right.

Poll results for Presidential Candidates, Top Two, in Slovakia, 2009

“Ostentatiously New” Parties (in Lithuania)

I have written a bit about new parties and particularly those parties for which being “new” is a feature (as Allan Sikk calls it, “the project of newness”)–and will be writing a lot more about this–but I never imagined that a single party’s advertising campaign could capture almost all of the basic issues involved with newness.  Enter Lithuania’s “National Resurrection Party”(Tautos prisikėlimo partija), a party of political outsiders run by a television performer  and producer Arūnas Valinskas (see him hosting Lithuania’s version of “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire“).

In addition to its origins outside of politics–and in show business–the party single five slide ad campaign offers a nearly perfect summary of the themes of “ostentatiously new” parties across the region all rolled up into a single package which itself breaks the “establishment” political mold with the kind of daring images that get attention and that most politicians would not risk using (the candidates themselves in drag, straightjackets, prison stripes, vampire-teeth and Viking helmets):

Theme 1: Fighting corruption
Caption: We will force the general prosecutor to work.
Behind bars

Theme 2: Honesty and independence (Along with Theme 1:Corruption)
Caption: We won’t steal from you (We can earn our own money)
We won’t steal from you

Theme 3: Tangible improvements in quality of life
Caption: When we rule, the price of heat won’t go up
Out of the cold

Theme 4: Defense of the people
Caption: We will fight for you tooth and claw
Tooth and claw

 Theme 5: Incapacity of the current political elite and its institutions
Caption: Let us enter this ship of fools (the ship is labeled “parliament”)
Ship of fools

These are really great ads–some of the funniest I’ve seen in a long time–but they offer no evvidence that TPP will break the cycle of brand new media-driven parties scoring big, entering government, losing their lustre and collapsing to leave a space before the next election (we’ve seen it twice now).  To the contrary, this party seems to have refined the process even further.  I have never seen an ad campaign that makes it more difficult to imagine the party’s future ad campaign.  It is hard to know where to go from here and so I can only assume that the party’s futures look like the ship in picture #5.  (Of course that’s what I said about Slovakia’s unprecedentedly popular ruling party Smer just after its election in 2006–see the last sentence in http://www.spectator.sk/articles/view/23721/2/).

Hat tip (much belated) to a bit of schadenfreude from The Monkey Cage http://www.themonkeycage.org/2008/10/post_130.html .  Thanks to Marek Rybar for obtaining the translations. Any errors in retranslation are my own.

December 2008: Final Poll Comparisons

The always unpredictable MVK has come in with new numbers for mid-December and so it is briefly worth revisiting the graphs.  The most interesting news from this survey, however, are the results for small parties that I do not cover here and will try to address in the next post.

As we knew from the other polls, the big November drop for Smer was more likely a sampling artifact rather than a genuine drop.  This month Smer returns to 39% where it usually polls with MVK.  This is lower than averages for other pollsters for 2008–2 points lower than the FOCUS average of 41 and 6 points lower than the UVVM average of 45% for the year.  One reason for that may be MVK’s inclusion of a larger number of smaller parties on its questionaire and the resulting loss 2-4% of Smer support to those who might otherwise pick Smer but who, when presented with an option such as “Green Party,” opt for that one.  As UVVM and FOCUS results suggest, almost nobody in Slovakia actively mentions the Green Party when asked an open question, but when given the option, a few percent move in that direction which, coupled with lower numbers for Smer on such polls, suggests a limited softness in the party’s support (which is no surprise anyway).

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

This graph of recent polling results for SDKU show strong agreement and again suggest that November’s MVK poll had some sampling problems.  All December polls show SDKU between 11% and 12%.

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

December results for SNS produced an unexpectedly wide range of results, especially for a party that had produced near consensus in previous month.  MVK results suggest that this was a sampling issue, with results that bisect the FOCUS low and the UVVM high and keep the party’s average almost unchanged from the previous month.  Ethnic controversy, by this standard, does not seem to be a major electoral boost for the party.

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

This graph of recent results for MK shows much the same, with an extremely narrow distribution at 8%.  This is low for a party with a demographic base of over 10% and for one facing the sort of political challenges that usually rally ethnic populations ’round the party.

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

This graph of recent results for HZDS showsthe continuing slow slide.  The party is at near record low levels in 2 of  3 major surveys and at its second lowest overall average in its history.

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

This graph of recent results for KDH shows a rise in December and MVK exactly bisects the two other polls, as it often does.

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

This graph of recent results for KSS shows now real change, but MVK numbers for Decembers show a slight drop from their periodic high in November.

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

This graph of recent results for SF shows suggest caution about notions of an SF boomlet found by FOCUS.  I cannot find SF numbers for the November but the party’s numbers have not changed measurably from the most recent poll number I have for September.  This, combined with unchanged numbers from UVVM offer reasons for skepticism.  It may be, however, that what might otherwise have been an SF rise in December was affected negatively by the inclusion of yet another new party–Sloboda a solidarita–designed to appeal to the same demographic.  But about SAS more in the next post.

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

Chickens, roosting

I was intrigued to see stories about a recent Fico appearance, particularly one in HNOnline entitled, “Fico: There is an artificially created impression that every politician is a thief.”

Fico: They have artificially created the impression that every politician is a thief

How did that impression get created?  I have a partial theory:

As they stole

The points Fico raises in the article are not at all inappropriate:  Politics is hard work and the “perks” of politics in many cases only amount to an amelioration of difficult working conditions (being a good politician–as Fico is–is probably easier than working in a mine, but the hours are long and the demands and stresses are extremely high).  As a political figure who does not appear to be using the office for personal financial gain, Fico must be particularly incensed.  Yet he did not shy away from such attacks while he was attempting to gain power and he must bear some of the responsibility for his own difficult circumstances.

The broader issue here is the question of corruption in the electoral politics of postcommunist countries (and elsewhere as well).  When corruption levels are high (or are perceived as high), corruption becomes an issue in itself and becomes for ambitious politicians to gain support (especially ambitious politicians who have not engaged in obvious corruption themselves).  This is often a pyrrhic victory, however, since success puts those same leaders in the sights of their own weapons: even if they stay clean, their associates may succumb to the temptation, and even if they do not, it is often difficult to persuade voters that the new boss is any different from the old boss, especially when they ride around in the same dark, powerful sedans.  And it is not suprising that Fico, even at the top of his electoral game, feels pressure from precisely the sense of cynicism toward elected officials that he participated in creating, the same sense that allegedly produced somebody to amend the above-mentioned Fico billboard to read “…and so they will also steal under me”

For more on the famous (in Slovakia) Fico advertisement, see:

For more on the dynamics of anti-corruption campaining, see:

Poll Comparisons: August-November 2008

August-November 2008 Poll Comparisions

Trends and comparisons monthly report

Although the overall figures for the last four months show little change, there have been some curious shifts in the polling numbers of various polling firms.  A graph of recent polling results for Smer from multiple sources shows in particular a sharp increase among Smer supporters on FOCUS polls, especially in October, when FOCUS and UVVM produced the same result.  (For context, the last time that Smer numbers were higher in FOCUS polls than in UVVM polls was April 2006, and since the June 2006 elections Smer’s numbers from UVVM have exceed its numbers from FOCUS by an average of 6 percentage points.  Smer’s preferences were not higher in MVK polls, however, and the party’s record highs in FOCUS polls were counteracted by record lows in MVK, especially in November.  (A side note: because UVVM and FOCUS produced identical results for Smer in October, the overlapping of their + and x symbols misleadingly produces a near-circle that resembles the indicator used here for MVK).

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

This graph of recent polling results for SDKU shows a reorientation of polling numbers but a stable aggregate.  Numbers for UVVM dropped sharply between October and November but rose sharply for MVK.  They stayed the same for FOCUS and the overall result is an average identical to the previous month.

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

This graph of recent results for SNS for the entire season shows tight clustering around the mean, with no more than 1 percentage point difference between any party and the mean.  That mean appears to have settled between 10-11% in the last three months and it is intriguing that this has happened despite an escallation in tensions between Slovakia and Hungary and heightened rhetoric and visibility for Slota.  December’s UVVM numbers may help figure out if there is any delayed effect but if not, it bodes ill for SNS which should be seeing some boost from the conflict.  A side note, I found it necessary this month to shift the range of the graph for SNS from a 10%-20% scale (like SDKU) to a 5%-15% scale (like SMK, HZDS and KDH).

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

This graph of recent results for MK again show unexpected volatility for what should be a stable population.  FOCUS numbers (hidden under the MVK circle) rebounded from near record lows in the October poll to something closer to the recent FOCUS averages for MK.  The inclusion in November of numbers from MVK (which tends to produce higher numbers for MK than other firms) brought the party’s average back up above 9% but I now have little doubt that MK’s numbers have begun to trail the party’s demographic base in a way they have not done in the past.  Whether this means they will poll lower in elections is an open question.  It will also be interesting to see if December numbers show the conflict between Slovakia and Hungary producing higher MK numbers.

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

This graph of recent results for HZDS shows more stability than for other parties.  The relative positions of pollsters remains unchanged and the party’s average has not changed by 0.5% percentage points from month to month.

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

This graph of recent results for KDH shows a bit more volatility than has been the recent norm, with a sharp drop by UVVM countered by a sharp rise by FOCUS.  MVK hugs the mean for this party, as it has often done.  The KDH-splinter party KDS registered for the first time above random noise on MVK’s September survey (though at a mere 0.8%), but the (as usual) haphazard reporting of results by major Slovak dailies does give any information about that party’s performance in November.

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

This graph of recent results for KSS shows stability.  Good MVK numbers bring the party up near 3% for the first time in half a year but little else seems to have changed.

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

This graph of recent results for SF shows bigger changes.  After October’s consensus at the 2% mark, FOCUS now shows the party at 3% while the UVVM numbers are back at 1%.  This is always difficult to gauge since the party’s total support is below the margin of error, even assuming no sampling problems.

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

Finally, while I did not prepare the graphs, HZD is at a post election high of 1.9, perhaps because of former party chair Gasparovic’s presidential election bid (the party saw a significant but fleeting gain during Gasparovic’s last effort) while ANO hovers on the threshold of non-existence with another 0.5%.

November 2008: Monthly Poll Averages

November 2008 Poll Averages

Overall Monthly Report: Continuity continued

How many ways to write the same story.  While there are some interesting variations among polls (to be covered in the next post) the overall story of Slovakia’s party support remains astoundingly consistent.  This month takes the edge off of some extremes in last month, most notably last month’s peak performance by Smer (the result of a major rise in its FOCUS numbers which this month have receded somewhat, though they remain higher than before) and valley numbers for SMK (also thanks to unusual FOCUS numbers).  This simply puts every party back at their overall recent averages:

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This long-term graph of poll results for coalition and non-coalition parties shows a slight drop in the coalitions performance because (unlike in October) there was no Smer increase to balance weakness in SNS and HZDS:

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 very little change over time.

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

And as always (of late), the month’s distribution of parliamentary seats shows a near majority by Smer.  If the election were held today, it would have its choice of a single partner.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

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).

<br />

New Parties, Again: Liga-Civic Liberal Party

LIGA-OLSDissatisfaction with Slovakia’s current roster of pro-market, cultural liberal parties has produced yet another entrant: Liga-Civic Liberal Party: http://www.liga-ols.sk.  Liga-OLS enters an crowded field, one already occupied by SDKU as well as the smaller, non-parliamentary Alliance of the New Citizen (ANO) and Slobodne Forum (SF).    

Liga’s proto-platform places it squarely in the same political space as those parties but as with KDS in the pro-market, cultural consevative quadrant, it is not entirely clear how Liga will manage to differentiate itself and draw voters from existing parties.  Pravda (anticipating this party’s creation) dealt with this question earlier this year in a brief article (here in Slovak, here in mediocre Google English translation.  Unlike KDS, Liga at least began its public life with a logo and a website, but it will take a considerable effort and probably some good luck for the party to become prominent enough to siphon off more dissatisfied SDKU voters, especially while ANO and SF are trying to do the same thing.  The Slovak socio-economic left was just as crowded by small parties around 2002 and has since seen a dramatic consolidation, but it had the advantage of “a Fico” and of somewhat less concern with cultural issues (which seem to have an asymmetrical impact, dividing the socioeconomic right more than the socioeconomic left).

More on this as we find out more.   October and November polling updates coming soon.