Ruling VMRO-DPMNE is the most popular party in Macedonia, according to a telephone poll conducted by the Institute Dimitrija Cupovski (IDC) on Jan 24-26, state news agency MIA reported. The survey’s sample includes 1,530 respondents.

Some 26.1% of the respondents said that they would vote for VMRO-DPMNE if parliamentary elections were held the following day.

VMRO-DPMNE is followed by the biggest opposition party SDSM (15.1%), the ethnic Albanian ruling coalition partner DUI (7.9%), and the opposition ethnic Albanian party DPA (3.9%). Some 28% of the respondents did not give any answer, while 15.3% said that they would not vote for any party.

A comparison with the electoral preferences revealed during two previous surveys (both held in October 2013) shows that the support figures for the four biggest parties have stayed largely unchanged.

IDC also conducted a simulation about the distribution of the seats in the country’s parliament, which showed that VMRO-DPMNE will have 59 lawmakers, SDSM – 36, DUI – 15, DPA -7, the recently formed party GROM – 2, and the opposition ethnic Albanian party NDP – 1. The simulation concerned only the 120 seats filled by voting in Macedonia, while the parliament has three more seats which are filled by the voting abroad.

Meanwhile, according to the latest survey PM Nikola Gruevski (also the leader of VMRO-DPMNE) remains the most trusted party leader with a 26.7% support. He is followed by SDSM leader Zoran Zaev (7.5%), DUI leader Ali Ahmeti (7.2%) and DPA leader Menduh Thaci (3.8%).

The last opinion poll also asked which party will win the next elections. VMRO-DPMNE is expected to win by 32.9% of the respondents, followed by SDSM (14.8%), DUI (8.6%) and DPA (3.7%), whereas 38.8% did not know.