February 7 (SeeNews) - Centre-left opposition Social Democratic Party (SDP) will win Croatia's 2020 general election, defeating governing centre-right Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), the results of a poll showed this week, confirming the outcome of a January survey.
If elections were held now, SDP would win 28.9% of the vote (up from January's 27.8%), while HDZ would come second with 26.8% support (slightly down from January's 26.9%), a survey conducted during January 31 - February 4 among 1,300 people by Promocija Plus agency for public broadcaster RTL Hrvatska showed on Thursday.
The survey has a margin of error of plus/minus 2.77%.
In January, SDP outran HDZ in opinion polls for the first time since HDZ came to power four years ago, after SDP candidate Zoran Milanovic won Croatia's presidential election, defeating incumbent president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic backed by HDZ in a January 5 runoff vote.
The next parliamentary election in Croatia is due to take place in the autumn.
In the February survey, third was the recently unveiled political formation of musician Miroslav Skoro, who came third in the first round of the presidential elections. Skoro's recorded 9.4% support in the poll, pushing the liberal Bridge of Independent Lists (Most), who backed Skoro in the presidential vote, into fourth position. Support for Most dropped to 5.1% in the February survey from January's 5.6%.
At the same time, the popularity of the independent alliance around former judge Mislav Kolakusic, NLMK, continued to drop, sliding to 2.5% from 3.0% in January and 6.6% in December.
The Croatian Peasant Party, HSS, which is going to participate in the elections together with SDP, came next with 2.3% support (down from January's 3.0%), followed by the right-wing coalition of Croatian sovereignists, Hrvatski Suverenisti, established in November 2019, with 2.2% (down from January's 3.9%).
According to the survey, president-elect Milanovic topped the most positive politician ranking for a second month in a row in February. His popularity rose to 18.8% from January's 16.7% and December's 8.3%, while prime minister and HDZ leader Andrej Plenkovic remained second with 15.5%, his highest score in the past year, up from January's 14.3% and December's 11.3%.
Miroslav Skoro follows with 4.8% (down from January's 6.7%), while outgoing president Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic is next with 2.6% (down from 3.6%).