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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 />

January 2009: FOCUS echos UVVM

January 2009 poll comparisions and averages

I should have known to wait for the FOCUS numbers to come in before writing yesterday’s post.  FOCUS is coming in much more quickly these days.  This month, however, one or the other would have been enough as the results are strikingly similar.  The two polls show the same trends for every major party.
For Smer the two moved in the same direction, almost perfectly.  Gone may be the day when FOCUS was much lower than UVVM on numbers for Smer.  Whether this is the result of a shift in network, methodology or the end of a long string of chance differences, I cannot say.  (Anyone know the answer?).  This month showed a decline from a peak in both.

For SDKU the resultsof the two polls have been shockingly close for three months now.  SDKU has stabilized, perhaps helped a bit by Radicova’s presidential campaign (perhaps not).

This graph of recent results for SNS shows a fairly wide divergence but similar trending–very slowly downward since December.

This graph of recent results for MK shows a slight rise in both polls, though the 2% gap is wide for such a small party.

The two polls’ numbers for HZDS are (as they have been) incredibly similar.  HZDS has reached its lowest recorded numbers in both polls (though with FOCUS this represents a tie with its numbers from August 2008).

This results for KDH show greater similarity between polls than during much of last year.  Both polls have shown essentially identical results for January and February and this time it is good news for KDH which has risen in both, even after its vice-chair Daniel Lipsic raised a storm by talking about his party’s participation in the “buying” of deputies during the previous parliamentary term.

This graph of recent results for KSS shows little change from last month with the two polls placing the party in its traditional zone between 2 and 3%.

This graph of recent results for SF shows a small gain in both surveys moving it toward 3%, up notably from its nadir a year ago at less than 1%.  The party’s gains have been steady, so it is difficult to attribute this solely to the increased visibility due to party chair Martinakova’s presidential bid, but this may help.

The two other oft-polled parties, remain insignificant.  ANO broke 1% for the first time in 5 months in the FOCUS poll but was nearer to zero in the UVVM poll; after some respectable (for it) showings around 2% in the past months, HZD is back at around 1% in both polls.

Finally, FOCUS has decided to continue with its addition of small parties–KDS, ZS and LIGA.  Each of these parties did better than in the previous month of polling by FOCUS: ZS rose from 0.4% to 1.0%, almost identical to its 1.1% result in UVVM polls.  KDS rose from 0.3% to 0.6% (at the same time that KDH rose several points) in the FOCUS poll.  LIGA rose from 0.3% to 0.4%.  So far SaS is present on the polling list only of MVK and we do not have MVK numbers for January or February.

Since the two polls showed such similar results, averaged all together it is almost indistinguishable from yesterday’s report on UVVM.  Smer leads, SDKU stays stable, SNS and HZDS drop slightly, KDH and SMK rise.

This means that the coalition stops its climb and the opposition stops its fall and so we are back almost exactly to mid-2008, though with HZDS a bit weaker and Smer a bit stronger.

The only really noteworthy result of analysis by bloc is that the “Slovak National” bloc falls to its lowest recorded levels (around 18%).  I doubt that these voters have lost their national sentiment, but they may have shifted to KSS or Smer (or even KDS?) which are not exclusively nationally oriented.

This month’s distribution of parliamentary seats shows that this all makes little difference so far in the big picture.  As always, Smer can form a government with only one partner (and since the numbers putting Smer with a simple majority last month were unlikely to be reached in an actual election, this is the way it has been essentially since the 2006 election.)

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 />

February 2008 UVVM: Coalition down slightly, new counting method for UVVM

UVVM Monthly Report for December 2008

If you set your frame narrowly enough, things can change quickly. In the big picture, nothing much has changed since last month, and the relative positions of parties are pretty much as they have been for the last two years.  Within that narrow frame, however, the current coalition has gone from near-highs for the post election period to near-lows thanks to drops in all three of the coalition parties, the first time all three have dropped simultaneously since late 2006.

Of the three, Smer’s drop was the largest but by far the smallest in percentage terms and the drop occurred after one of the party’s near-high scores, so some correction may be expected.  This month’s 46% is still one of the party’s eight highest scores over the last 30 months.

For the other coalition parties, the drop was more significant, with SNS sliding back toward the 11% mark after a high point late in 2008 and HZDS dropping to its lowest mark ever recorded in a major survey, the first time the party has ever received less than 6%.  Of course there is a lot of noise with smaller parties, but HZDS’s tendency to hit new lows every six months or so and its inability for its occasional highs to rise to the levels of previous highs cannot be happy news within the party.  The graph below suggests that the party is not yet in danger of dropping below the 5% threshold in the 2010 election, but the danger is getting closer, particularly since party regularly varies more than 1% from its trendline average meaning that with current trends 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.

For the opposition parties in parliament, this was a good month, especially for KDH which seemed to be facing a slide as serious as that of HZDS. Again there is a lot of noise and variation here but this gives the party a brief reprieve.  Overall, as the graph below shows, the opposition parties are back near their high point for the post election period.  Unfortunately for them, this is a paltry 33%.

And unfortunately for them, Smer is still within striking range of a one-party government.

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 at the bottom in tabular format (using “iframe” which may not work on all browsers).

It is worth noting here, however that UVVM has changed its method for asking about voter participation and that this can have effects on the overall results.  As the table below shows, UVVM has changed its question three times in the last two years, switching to a “Do not sympathize with any” response after the 2006 election and then in 2007 changing back to the method it used before which allows a “will not vote” response.  This new option lowered the number of people who specified a party from an average 0f 74% to an average of 68% (though increasing disillusionment with all parties could explain some of the decline).  Now UVVM has split the question into two parts, first asking whether respondents will vote at all and then asking whether for whom they will vote. Asking first about voting has the immediate effect of increasing the share of “will not vote” responses by 8 percentage points.  In the second phase, the survey asks those who will vote to specify a party and here too it allows a “do not know” response.  Between the 8 point increase in “will not vote” and the 3 point increase in the combined “do not know” (respondents who do not know if they will vote and those who do not know for whom they will vote), this method produces an 11 point drop in those who actually specify a party.  Whether this is good or bad is hard to say.  It suggests a lower level of turnout–and I suspect the purpose of the shift is to fix UVVM’s overprediction of turnout in 2006–but whether it is a more accurate measure of results is hard to say.  It is notable that it does not substantially alter the overall party preferences, all of which stay within a few percentage points of their numbers using the old method.  Of course the only way to really test the effect is to ask both sets of questions at the same time, but this would double the expense.  More news on this as I find out any details.

2006		2007-2008		2009
For whom will you vote?		For whom will you vote?		Will you vote?		For those answering “Will vote”: For whom will you vote?
Does not sympatize with any	26.4
		Will not vote	17.9	Will not vote	25.0
		Does not know who to vote for	14.2
				Does not know whether to vote	11.4
				Will vote	63.6
Specifies party	73.6	Specifies party	67.9			Does not know whom to vote for	6.2
						Specifies party	57.4

Finally, I should note that like MVK and FOCUS, UVVM appears to have added the Party of Greens (SZ) to its list of parties on the official roster.  At some point I will rework my software to include them here, but for the moment they remain at a single percentage point (close to the results obtained by FOCUS in January) and so not much is lost by their omission.  It is noteworthy that only one in a thousand respondents (here it can only be one out of the 600 asked) specified a party not on the list, suggesting that there is no spontaneous support for KDS, Liga, or SaS.

<br />

January 2009 Poll Averages: Smer gains, KDH loses, new parties become visible

January 2009 Poll Averages

Overall Monthly Report

Numbers for January are in and while there is not too much to report, there are a few striking findings.  Smer had an excellent month, tying its previous high score in UVVM and achieving a new high in FOCUS (by more than 2 percentage points over its previous high in October 2008).  As the graphs below show, this means that for the first time the poll /average/ gives it a straightforward parliamentary majority of 76 seats.  The big open question is whether a sinking economy will pull these numbers down, but every time it seems that the party has now hit its peak, it sags a bit and goes on to a new peak, so this is truly an open question.

This short-term graph of poll results for averages of major parties other than Smer shows a sharp–two percentage point–drop in KDH not quite compensated for by a rise in SDKU, while within the coalition, SNS’s loss was HZDS’s gain (perhaps literally).  And SMK continues its slow slide to places well below its demographic base.  In general the nationali parties have remained stable while the major opposition parties have all dropped by small margins over the past few months. Among the smaller parties, KSS stayed stable and the 4% result for Slobodne Forum in last month’s FOCUS poll is even more clearly apparent as an outlier.  HZD (not shown here) has been on a very slight upward trend, perhaps related to the Gasparovic presidential campaign, but shows nothing like the bounce that it saw in Gasparovic’s previous campaign.

Not pictured here–because they are mere single data points, is new polling data for other small parties, many themselves new. FOCUS has apparently begun to follow the lead of MVK and include these parties on their response sheet, making it easier for voters to choose them.  The psychological effect of this choice is immediately apparent, increasing by a factor of 10 the number of people specifying a party other than those above (albeit from 0.1% to 1.0%).  The Party of Greens (SZ) netted 0.4% from this choice while the KDH-splinter Conservative Democratic Party (KDS) emerged at 0.3% and the liberal LIGA emerged at 0.3% as well.  The 0.3% for KDS may have some bearing on the drop in KDH, but the 0.3% represents only one seventh of the KDH decline.

It is notable that FOCUS numbers for these small parties are much lower than those of MVK which regularly reports SZ figures above 2% and in September reported KDS at 0.8% (but has not reported KDS numbers since).  Interestingly MVK in December put the numbers of yet another new party, the liberal Freedom and Solidarity (SAS) at 2.0%.  FOCUS did not include this party in its list.

Now back to results for bigger parties. Even with weakness in SNS, the Smer increase (and small HZDS increase as well) still pulls the coalition to a new high of 66%: two out of three voters in Slovakia.

This long-term graph of poll results for (loosely defined) party “blocs” parties shows the coalition’s increase coming from Smer while SNS and HZDS continue to split their 20%, each month differing only in who gets how much of it. The drop in KDH hurts the opposition significantly.

This month’s distribution of parliamentary seats shows the first “poll average” Smer majority.  It’s coalition partners bring an additional 29 seats.  The opposition by this standard would muster 45, which is not that much more than the current coalition without the Smer majority.

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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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).

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%.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

December 2008: Poll Averages and Comparisons

Overall Monthly Report:
Record highs for Smer and disagreements elsewhere

For the first time I can remember we have both FOCUS and UVVM numbers by mid-month (FOCUS getting there first this month) and so we can do a quick analysis already.  If time allows over the holiday season, I may try to do a few more year-on-year comparisons.

This graph averaging the last 24 months of polling results from multiple sources shows a number for Smer that is higher than any previous average.  Although the party is not at is record high for either UVVM or FOCUS, this is the first time it has been at a near-record high for both in the same month.  SDKU is at a correspondingly record low, though since these parties do not share the same voter pool and any correspondence is likely a coincidence.  (Unlike Smer, furthermore, SDKU is not seeing numbers that are unprecedented for the party: what is here a record low would have been for the party a near record high between 2003 and 2006, though then the party was in the tougher position of bearing responsibility for government actions)

These numbers do not give the party a majority of seats but they do bring it within 3 of a majority, again the highest numbers recorded for a poll average.  The opposition, by this calculation, would have a mere 46, less than 2/3 of Smer alone.

It is worthwhile to note the degree to which these numbers reflect disagreement among pollsters, however.  In the first place, the “Smer-gap” has re-emerged.  Smer numbers for FOCUS have recently notched upward, but now so have its numbers for UVVM, so we are back at a 6 point difference which is smaller than before only in the sense that it must be measured against a higher baseline for Smer so that it accounts for a smaller overall percentage.

For SDKU, however, the gap has now disappeared and both polls show the party at the exact same level, just above 11%, though not quite in need of the shift in axis that SNS suffered in last month’s poll (from the 10%-20% range to 5-15%).  Still, the news for SDKU is not good.

This graph of recent results for SNS shows the return of divergence after long months of near-agreement. FOCUS shows a continuing slide while UVVM shows a sharp rise.  Is politicization of conflicts with Hungary working for SNS?  It depends on your pollster.

For MK it does not depend on the pollster–we are back to agreement after a month of disagreement–but MK numbers have been so erratic (given its base) that it is hard to know what to think.

As with SNS, it was either a good month or a bad month for HZDS depending on your pollster.  The party’s numbers from FOCUS this month exceed its numbers from UVVM, something that has happened only 4 times in the 30 months since the previous election.  Regardless of relative position, the two are quite close suggesting that the party’s polling level lies around 8% at present, not good for a party that regularly commanded twice that level four years ago, but not in danger of extinction.  Long term trends show the party falling below 5% but not in the next year.

This graph of recent results for KDH shows the emergence of a gap that had, for a while, disappeared.  Through most of 2007 the party polled better with FOCUS than with UVVM and it does so again, with a nearly 4 percentage point gap, one of the highest in percentage terms for any party.  Both, however, show a slight rise for the party from November to December.

This graph of recent results for KSS shows little change: the party usually polls better with FOCUS than with UVVM and it does so again.

If all we had were FOCUS numbers, it would be easy to accuse this post of burying the lead: “SF nears threshold of electability.”  That may be true, especially as dissatisfaction with SDKU appears to grow, but here we find it’s only true of one poll:  The party scores 4.5% with FOCUS but remains mired at 1% with UVVM.  There is a story here but it is hard to know which way it is going.

Other parties remain low.  The November bump for HZD has receded in December and ANO is at at near-record lows with both FOCUS and UVVM for the party’s lowest-ever result in poll averages (0.2%).  Its decline in the FOCUS poll may help to explain some of the rise for SF which is its alternative on the non-parliamentary “right.”  The category of “Other” party is also extremely low, suggesting that respondents do not spontaneously offer the Green Party, the Conservative Democrats or Liga-OLS.  Of course this depends on the nature of the questioning: MVK appears to include the Green Party on its list and regularly receives percentages of about 2% for that party.  The same might be true of KDS or Liga if their names were included.

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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December 2008 UVVM: The High Plateau

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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