Govt approval rating lowest in this term

Ljubljana – The government approval rating slipped to its lowest point this term in the latest Barometer poll commissioned by the newspaper Delo. As many as 40% of respondents gave the cabinet a very negative grade. The gap between the ruling Democrats (SDS) and the opposition Social Democrats (SD) is narrowing.

As many as 40.4% of the 709 adults that took part in the poll, conducted by Mediana for Delo between 2 and 4 November, believe the government is performing very badly. In October, the share was at 37%. Another 19% of respondents said it was performing badly (19.7% in October).

Thus, almost 60% of respondents in total said they were displeased with the cabinet, Delo reported today.

The share of those who think the government’s job is neither good nor bad dropped from 20.2% in October to 19% this month, while 11.8% gave it a positive mark (10.5% in October) and 7.7% a very positive (11.2% in October).

On a scale of one to five, the government received 2.26 this month, which is by far the worst score since the start of its term in March 2020.

The paper attributes this to scandals such as the one involving Environment Minister Andrej Vizjak, and motions to oust four ministers.

The parliament also received the lowest grade since March 2020, at 2.2. Less than 8% of respondents assessed its work as good or very good.

The SDS remains the most popular party, but its support dropped by two percentage points to 15.6%, while the SD gained ground, going up by four points to 12.8%. The two parties are thus less than three percentage points apart, which is the same as in April.

The third most popular party is the opposition Left, which lost a little more than one percentage point to poll at 7.2%. The opposition Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ) follows at 6%, down from 8.6% last month.

The coalition New Slovenia (NSi) gained 0.8 percentage points to poll at 5.9% while the opposition Alenka Bratušek Party (SAB) lost 0.6 percentage points and dropped to 3.7%.

The opposition Pensioners’ Party (DeSUS) and the coalition Modern Centre Party (SMC) are down to less than half a percent.

The share of undecided voters was down by two percentage points this month to 20.7%, but the share of those who would not vote for any of the parties increased by just as much to 11.8%.

The coalition parties together polled at 21.9% and the left-leaning opposition (SD, Left, LMŠ, SAB) at 29.7%.

The most popular politician is still Health Minister Janez Poklukar, followed by President Borut Pahor and Infrastructure Minister Tadej Vrtovec.

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