Ljubljana - The ruling Democrats (SDS) continue to top the party rankings in the latest Mediana poll conducted for the newspaper Delo, with their support rising somewhat. The voter approval rating for the government has also improved.

The SDS enjoys the support of 18.3% of respondents, up by 1.2 percentage points compared to last month. It is followed by the opposition Social Democrats (SD), whose support dropped by 2.4 percentage points to 10.3%.

The opposition Left lost 0.9 of a percentage point but remained in third place, polling at 7.7%.

The opposition Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ) remained in fourth with 6.3% (a drop from 7.3% in August), followed by the coalition New Slovenia (NSi), which gained 0.4 of a percentage point to poll at 4.1%.

The opposition Alenka Bratušek Party (SAB) went from 2.1% to 3.8%, while all other parties remain well below the parliamentary threshold, with the opposition Pensioners' Party (DeSUS) and National Party (SNS) polling at 2% and 1.7%, respectively, and the coalition Modern Centre Party (SMC) at 1.2%.

Compared to August, the share of undecided voters has increased significantly, from 19.4% to 26.2%. About 9% of respondents said they would not vote for any of the existing parties. In August the share was at 10.7%.

Taking into account only the decided voters, the SDS would win 31.2% if election was held this Sunday, the SD 17.6%, the Left 13.2%, the LMŠ 10.7%, the NSi 7%, SAB 6.5% and DeSUS 3.4%.

The current coalition parties would thus win 40.2% of the vote, while the left-leaning opposition parties would garner 47.9%. The difference is smaller than in August, when it was nine percentage points.

In the poll, carried out on a sample of 711 adult residents of Slovenia between 6 and 9 September, 9.4% of respondents assessed the government's work as very positive, 12.1% as positive, 25.7% as medium, 24.7% as negative and 26.2% as very negative. Almost 2% were undecided.

The average grade of government work on a 1-to-5 scale has improved, rising from 2.46 to 2.53. The National Assembly's score also improved, from 2.35 to 2.37.

President Borut Pahor remains the most popular politician, followed by Health Minister Janez Poklukar, and parliamentary Speaker Igor Zorčič. SD leader and MEP Tanja Fajon saw the biggest drop in support, going from fifth to ninth place.