In the interview with Martin Slosiarik you will read:
whether Ivan Korčok and Peter Pellegrini are 100% finalists in the elections; which fight from the past is most reminiscent of this presidential election; what combination of strategies should Ivan Koročok use to win; how can Štefan Harabin, Andrej Danko and Igor Matovič intervene in the elections.
There are less than two months left until the presidential elections. According to polls for the first round, Peter Pellegrini has a relatively clear lead over Ivan Korčok. Do you think it is 100% certain that Peter Pellegrini and Ivan Korčok will reach the second round?
If both of them will run in the elections, which they probably will, and if something does not happen that would create a barrier for one of them to run, then I am one hundred percent convinced that one of them will be the president.
So any coincidence that would get Štefan Harabin to the second round is unlikely?
I can’t imagine such a coincidence today, although, of course, they say never say never. However, this would have to lead to significant moral questioning of one of the candidates. I don’t know who he would replace in that pair of candidates, but I can’t even imagine it today.
In 2004, we could not have imagined that Gašparovič and Mečiar would reach the second round, and it was also essentially a coincidence.
Yes, although today I see it a little differently. If I remember that year correctly, Eduard Kukan failed, who was only a few tenths of a percent behind Ivan Gašparovič. Even the polls did not show that there is such a significant gap between the second and third in the order.
It’s exactly about that, and it was the case even then, that if there are more candidates from one part of the political spectrum, then it was František Mikloško and Martin Bútora, then people can probably decide on the election in the first round even under the influence of public opinion polls based on some value or personal closeness to the person in question and it may have such an unintended consequence.
But I think that today the difference is significantly bigger and Peter Pellegrini – and this is very important – today has the support of the strongest political party Smer and also of his own party Hlas. That’s a big part of the preference pie it can draw from today. There is a certain potential for Štefan Harabin, but it is limited by Peter Pellegrini.
From the data you measure, do you see the tendency of Ivan Korčok to gradually catch up with the chairman of Hlas?
Certainly yes. See it primarily in the hypothetical second round. If I remember the November data correctly, the difference was 20 percentage points, i.e. 60 to 40 percent. Already at the end of the year, Korčok began to approach. We conducted a survey at the time, according to which the difference was only 15 percentage points, and in the current January survey, the difference dropped to 10 percentage points.
It is questionable whether Ivan Korčok will be able to reduce this relatively high lead of Petr Pellegrini and whether he will have the reserve or the strategy to be able to wage an equal fight in the second round.
So this trend could continue, but it is questionable whether it will make it?
Yes. And it must be said that in a way Ivan Korčok is also recording the last statement of Štefan Harabin, who said in one of his last interviews that he would not recommend the election of Petr Pellegrini to his voters in the second round and would rather recommend them to stay at home.
harabin
This article is exclusive content for Denník N subscribers.
Are you a subscriber? Log in