The largest opposition party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, is maintaining its lead (24.6%) in the latest poll, by NMS Market Research, ahead of populist Smer, whose leader, Prime Minister Robert Fico, is pushing to keep his left-right coalition together and avert the prospect of early elections.

Smer’s key coalition ally centre-left Hlas would collect 10.5%, the NMS poll shows, followed by non-parliamentary neofascist Republika (7.4%), opposition parties Christian Democratic KDH (6.6%), neoliberal SaS (6.1%) and populist right-wing Slovakia (5.8%).

Another populist right-wing party, Sme rodina [We are a family], would collect 4.1%, just below the 5% parliamentary threshold, as would Hungarian ethnic Aliancia (3.2%) and centre-right Democrats (3%).

NMS pointed out that Smer returned to grow in its popularity after slumps registered in previous polls, adding that in case of Republika, there is “a close connection with the support of Smer,” and that “when Smer grows, Republika drops and vice versa.

Besides stopping the fall in Smer’s popularity with his radical pro-Kremlin and conspiratory rhetoric of alleged anti-government “coup” unfolding in Slovakia, Fico also gave an ultimatum to Hlas and the junior coalition party member, far-right SNS, to address their rebelling legislators by February 17 in a push to end the ongoing internal rows.

Fico stated he will “offer the president multiple changes in the government” on February 17 if Hlas and SNS are not able to  “reach internal party agreements with legislators who left groupings of these parties.”

“I am glad that after half a year when the coalition agreement has not been respected, Mr. Prime Minister began to attend to this matter,” Hlas leader Matus Sutaj Estok told media on February 12 ahead of another round of talks to restructure Fico’s cabinet.

His party colleague and Vice Premier for Recovery Plan Peter Kmec confirmed there will be changes in the government, including a reshuffle at his post, and that the priority is “to secure majority for the government in the parliament” and avert the prospect of early elections.

While Hlas ejected two of its legislators from its ranks over political disagreements and two more continue to rebel over securing of public posts, three legislators elected on the SNS list left the party grouping and led by Rudolf Huliak demand a ministerial portfolio to continue backing Fico’s cabinet.

SNS leader Andrej Danko addressed an open letter to Fico in which he accused Fico of lacking empathy and breaching the ruling coalition agreement himself.

Some of the country’s analysts pointed out that Danko’s letter is a confirmation of ongoing speculation about Fico isolating himself following an assassination attempt last May.        

Political scientist Aneta Vilagi told the country’s press agency TASR that Danko’s open letter indicates that continued rows inside the ruling coalition are likely even if the cabinet reshuffle takes place and that early elections are still one of the possible outcomes of the cabinet crisis.