Poll: Macedonia Ruling Party Support Declines

Asked which party they would vote for if elections were held now, 21.4 per cent of respondents said they would vote for VMRO-DPMNE, considerably lower than in previous polls that show the party's support level at almost 30 per cent.
 
The poll showed that 13.9 per cent of respondents would vote for the biggest opposition party, the Social-Democrats, SDSM, while 8.2 per cent said thy would vote for the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, the ethnic Albanian party that is part of the ruling coalition.
  
The poll showed that 4.5 per cent of those questioned would vote for the main Albanian opposition party, the Democratic Party of Albanians, while 1.9 per cent said they would vote for the United for Macedonia garnered and 1.5 per cent for New Democracy.

Thirteen per cent of respondents said they would not vote, 25 per cent were undecided, while seven per cent did not answer the question.

The poll comes amid public speculations of early elections and after the country failed last month to secure a start date for accession talks with the European Union due to the Greek blockade over the unresolved bilateral name row.

Since 2006, the ruling VMRO DPMNE has snatched several landslide victories against its greatest opponent, the SDSM. The party won the early general elections in 2008 and crushed the opposition once again in the 2009 local and presidential polls.

Sixty one per cent of the people said that the next six months will be crucial for the settlement of the Athens-Skopje name dispute.

Forty four per cent of respondents think that if there is no soon solution to the name spat with Greece, ethnic relations between the Macedonian majority and the country’s one quarter Albanian population will get worse. 

According to the poll, the majority of Macedonians, some 67 per cent expect a tough economic year in 2010.

The survey was made on a representative sample of the population, the NGO’s say.