Slovenia Bulletin: Parliamentary elections will be on 3 October 2004

četrtek, julij 29, 2004

Parliamentary elections will be on 3 October 2004

President Janez Drnovšek announced on 9 July that parliamentary elections have been scheduled for 3 October. Parties may campaign from 3 September through 1 October, with no campaigning allowed by law for the 24 hours before Election Day. [UVI / 12.07.04 / General Election on 3 October]

Elections are held every four years for the 90 seats in the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament. The upper house, the National Council, is elected indirectly every five years by special electoral bodies. [UVI / 26.07.04 / Autumn Election Stopwatch Starts Ticking]

Slovenia’s last parliamentary elections were held on 15 October 2002, after a new election law had been passed. Even though that law had raised the percentage of the vote required for a party to enter parliament, eight parties managed to win seats.

A survey for July published by the weekly Mag showed that some 56.9 percent of respondents oppose the government, while just 35 percent approve of it. The poll showed a spike in support for the conservative NSi party, from 4.3 percent in May to 11 percent for June. NSi had a strong showing in last month’s elections to the European Parliament. [SB / 26.06.04 / EuroParliament elections raise questions; ICE / 16.07.04 / Slovenia's European election results form opinion ahead of upcoming national elections]

Slovenia’s most popular party for more than a decade, the LDS, showed up with just 20.5 percent support on the Mag poll, follwed by the SDS at 16 and the ZLSD at 9. The SLS, SNS, SMS and DeSUS all got less than the 4 percent required to enter parliament. [STA / 14.07.04 / Weekly's poll shows mounting support for opposition New Slovenia party]

Another poll, published on 26 July by Dnevnik showed the LDS with the support of 37 percent of respondents, followed by the SDS at 26.1, the ZLSD at 20 and the NSi at 9.5. This poll showed the SNS at 5.3 percent, DeSUS at 4.3 and the SLS at 4.1, which means they would remain in parliament, while only the SMS (with 2.4) would fail to make the cut. [STA / 26.07.04 / Liberal Democracy to get most votes in general election - poll]