February 7 (SeeNews) - The opposition centre-right Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) is the favourite to win the general elections in the country following last week's resignation of prime minister Marjan Sarec, an opinion poll showed on Friday.
If the elections were held this week, SDS would be backed by 18.3%, up from 17.4% a month earlier, a survey conducted between February 3 and 5 by Parsifal agency for public broadcaster Nova24 TV showed. The survey was conducted among 702 people.
Sarec's centre-left LMS party would rank second with 17.2%, down from 17.3% in January, the survey showed.
SD has 6.5% support, followed by the Slovenian National Party (SNS) with 5.4%, the Left party Levica with 5.2%, New Slovenia-Christian Democrats (NSi) with 4.4%, DeSUS with 4.0%, conservative agrarian Slovenian People's Party (SLS) with 3.0%, and SMC and SAB each with 2.0%.
Prime minister Sarec resigned on January 27 over disagreement between his health and finance ministers on how to eliminate the supplementary health insurance in the country.
He called for early elections, but it is up to Slovenian president Borut Pahor now to decide whether the snap vote should be called or there is enough will among the parties in the current parliament to propose a mandate-holder and vote a new government into office.
Pahor will have to make his mind by the end of February, following consultations with political party leaders.
The outgoing coalition cabinet of five parties was sworn in September 2018 as Slovenia's first minority government, formed after SDS won the snap vote but failed to attract partners to form a cabinet. It is made up of representatives of LMS, the social-liberal Modern Centre Party (SMC), the Social Democrats (SD), the Alenka Bratusek Party (SAB) and the Democratic Party of Pensioners of Slovenia (DeSUS).
The Sarec-led coalition holds 43 of 90 seats in Slovenia's parliament. It was voted into office with the support of nine MPs from the Left party which has remained in opposition.