Ljubljana - More than half of those questioned in a poll commissioned by the newspaper Delo believe the government has performed below par in its first 100 days in office. The poll, conducted by Mediana, shows 56.5% rating the government's job as negative or very negative, against 26.1% who gave it a positive or very positive mark.

On a scale of one to five, the government was given an average score of 2.42, which compares to 2.45 in the August poll.

The National Assembly fared slightly better, at 2.47, up from 2.44 a month ago. A total of 49.7% gave it a negative or very negative mark and 20.9% scored it positive or very positive.

The Freedom Movement of Prime Minister Robert Golob continues in the lead ahead of the opposition Democrats (SDS) as both parties lost some ground; the former is down 0.7 percentage points to 29.9% and the SDS lost 0.9 points to 21.7%.

The opposition party New Slovenia (NSi) returned to third spot after gaining a full point to 8.1%, as the coalition Social Democrats (SD) slipped back 1.5 points to 6.4%.

The Left, another member of the ruling coalition, added 1.1 point to 4.9%.

The remaining parties polled at less than 3% as 10.6% respondents were undecided and 4.3% said they would not vote for any party.

The three coalition parties saw their combined support decline by 1.1 points to 41.2% as the two opposition parties gained 0.1 of a point to 29.8%.

Golob tops the ranking of the most popular politicians for the second month running. Health Minister Danijel Bešič Loredan is in second and President Borut Pahor slipped to third despite improving his mark.

The poll was conducted between 5 and 9 September among 723 respondents.