All respondents having the right to vote were asked an open question (i.e. without a list of political parties being used) investigating which party they would vote for if an election to the Chamber of Deputies took place the following week (the question was: ‘Imagine that an election to the Chamber of Deputies is held next week. If you participated, which party would you vote for?’). The structure of the answers given is summarised in the table.

In October 2004, approximately a third of respondents (approx. 33%) considered the standard of living of their household as being good. 45% described it as neither good, nor bad, and less than a quarter (22%) characterised it as bad. 4% of inhabitants consider their household to be rich, while 29% consider it to be as relatively or very poor and two thirds as neither rich nor poor. Difficulties when managing the current income of their family were stated by 60% of respondents, 36% of respondents stated that they would cope with the household budget more or less easily.

Discontent with the current situation prevailed in the majority of the investigated areas. The only exceptions with respect to that were represented by the accession of the CR to the EU, the school system and health care system. The highest discontent was expressed in connection with corruption and unemployment where this feeling was declared by more than three quarters of respondents. In comparison to this the evaluation of the current state of social security, efficiency of the state economy, immigration issues, legal environment, involvement of people to have a say in public affairs, efficiency of offices and the standard of living were considerably less unfavourable, despite the fact that this in isolation was also evaluated in a mostly negative way.

Those polled who preferred or sympathised with a particular political party (829 respondents) were, as part of an October survey, asked a repeated question examining the intensity of the relation with this political party.

Only 12% of voters classified themselves as staunch party supporters. Traditionally, the largest group approving of most of party activities consistently amounted to between 40 and 50% of those polled.

As ”definitely important” for quality discharge of a regional council member’s office people regard the candidate’s moral qualities, knowledge of the region’s problems, ability to solve conflicts, ability to express ideas and expert knowledge. As ”quite significant” qualifications for successful discharge of a regional council member’s office the respondents also regarded knowledge of foreign languages, good relations with central bodies, experience with work in public administration on municipal level, spirit of enterprise, administrative experience and university education.

As for opinions concerning the benefit of introducing self-governing regions the Czech public remained significantly ambivalent. Approximately one quarter of the interviewees believe that the introduction of self-governing regions, which have now been existing for four years, was proved right. However, approximately the same part of the respondents holds the very opposite view. Another quarter stated that this issue cannot be judged after such a short time period.

In October survey, the Public Opinion Research Centre investigated whether the interviewed people confide in selected politicians. This time the submitted list included the names of 27 representatives of the parties present in the Chamber of Deputies. The respondents expressed the highest level of confidence in ČSSD leader Stanislav Gross (50 %). He is followed by Mirek Topolánek, Cyril Svoboda, Jan Zahradil, Lubomír Zaorálek, Miloslav Ransdorf and Miroslav Kalousek.

In October 2004, Czech citizens expressed the highest level of confidence in the president of the country. He was found trustworthy by almost three quarters of the respondents. Local councils were found trustworthy by more than a half of the interviewees (62 %). Approximately two fifths of the interviewees trust their regional council (42 %) and also our government (40 %). In comparison with the previous month the government’s position has slightly improved.

A part of the October survey of the Public Opinion Research Centre was also a set of questions devoted to the Czech education system. Czech citizens judge the quality of all types of schools in a relatively positive way. Compared with other types of schools, education at secondary training institutions was valued as being on a good level by the smallest amount of respondents. Regardless of that, their quality was appraised as good by two thirds of respondents, who answered the question.

The question in the September survey, if the existence of small breweries in the Czech Republic was endangered, was mostly answered by respondents (37 %) by saying they could not judge these issues and 15 % of the approached citizens were not interested in it. A fifth of respondents think that small breweries are seriously endangered. The statement that small breweries are not seriously endangered in any way was supported by another fifth of respondents.