Ljubljana - Slovenians seem to be increasingly unhappy with the situation in the society, suggests a poll conducted by Valicon. As many as 58% of respondents said they were not happy with the situation, which is more than last June and more than before the epidemic. They are also more pessimistic about the future.

The survey Mirror of Slovenia measuring people's satisfaction with the general situation, expectations about the future, their personal happiness and expectations has been conducted since December 2012.

The gap between the share of the satisfied and unsatisfied had been decreasing until December 2018. In November 2019, the gap started increasing.

In June 2020, when the first wave of the epidemic was over, a better result was recorded again but the latest findings, from the beginning of this month, show that the share of people unhappy with the social situation has been rising again.

While in June 2020, 40% of respondents were unhappy with the general situation, now this share rose to 58%. The share of people who are not happy with the situation at all reached 21%, up four percentage points from last June.

The last time such a big gap between those who are satisfied and those who are not was recorded was in February 2017 but with a positive trend that lasted until November 2019.

"It seems that we have entered the epidemic with a deteriorating social atmosphere, and the political instability of the Marjan Šarec government was replaced by the Covid crisis. The summer easing did not last long and now we are faced with the consequences of the long duration of the epidemic, pandemic fatigue, and at the same time a different type of political instability."

The minority government is losing support and people's trust, and the political polarisation is increasing, Valicon said.

If this continues, the gap between the share of those who are happy and those who are not happy with the situation will probably continue to grow wider.

The share of people who think the situation in Slovenia is deteriorating reached the highest level since 2013 this month, standing at 61.7%. Only 10.9% of respondents think things are looking up.

Almost 60% of respondents said they were happy or very happy regardless of the general situation (64% in June), and 40.5% said they were unhappy or vary unhappy (36% in June).

The survey was conducted among 1,032 people between 26 February and 5 March.