In the February survey, the Public Opinion Research Centre extensively treated questions concerning the position of the president of CR. First of all we interrogated all the respondents about which electoral method is, according to their point of view, the most suitable for the Czech Republic.

The Czech public in general and also all the important subgroups of the population agree that the president of the republic should be elected by all voters.

As for the question about whom the president should be approaching directly during the discharge of his office, the public regards as trouble free contacts mainly communication with citizens in general (91 % yes, 7 % no) or – to a lesser extent – with socially weaker population groups (67 % yes, 25 % no). As far as the president’s direct contacts within the political sphere are concerned, the Czech public agrees largely on relations with the government coalition parties (72 % yes, 23 % no), the strongest political party (63 % yes, 31 % no) or opposition parties represented in the Parliament (61 % yes, 32 % no), but not so in the case of contacts with non-parliamentary opposition (40 % yes, 50 % no) or a party, which is politically closest to the president himself (33 % yes, 59 % no).

In the February survey of the Public Opinion Research Centre we focused on the Czech public views concerning the work and competencies of the president of CR. First we were interested in the citizens’ opinions concerning what the primary activities of the president should be. It was an open question (without any suggested answers) and the respondents had the opportunity to mention up to three fields, which – according to their opinion – should be prioritised by the president.

In a February survey of the Public Opinion Research Centre, Czech citizens presented their opinions on, inter alia, the election to the European Parliament. Respondents were first asked whether they wanted to participate in the election.

In February 2004, 60% of Czech citizens expressed willingness to participate in the election to the European Parliament. On the other hand, a quarter of Czech voters (26%) did not want to vote.

The absolute majority of the Czech public rejects the deployment of Czech soldiers for combat in Afghanistan, while support for this step was voiced by less than a fifth of respondents (17 %), opinions against were expressed by three quarters (75 %) of citizens. Resentment to sending a Czech special unit to Afghanistan clearly prevails among supporters of all political parties, with the strongest disagreement being voiced by supporters of the KSČM (90 % against, 7 % for), followed by followers of the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD) (78 % against, 14 % for), Christian Democratic Party- Czechoslovak People’s Party (KDU-ČSL) (73 % against, 23 % for) and ODS (70 % against, 24 % for).

In February 2004 Czech citizens expressed the highest level of confidence in the president of the country (71 %). The lowest number of the respondents expressed confidence in the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. Both institutions are now trusted by only a fifth of the respondents. Compared to January 2004 there was a significant drop in the level of the public’s confidence in the Czech government (it is currently regarded as trustworthy by 26 % of citizens).

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 structure of the answers given is summarised in the table.

The question ‘Imagine that an election to the Chamber of Deputies is held next week. Would you participate?’ was answered yes by 66% of those surveyed having the right to vote (‘definitely yes’ by 28% and ‘probably yes’ by 38%), while 26% said no (15% ‘probably not’ and 11% ‘definitely not’) and 8% did not know.

In January 2004, all respondents were asked the following question: ‘Do you think that during last year the following areas improved, deteriorated or remained unchanged in the Czech Republic?’ The respondents are of the opinion that no major changes occurred in most of the monitored areas. The absolute majority of those polled did not register any change in respect of the observance of human rights, the possibility of citizens to participate in the decision-making process about public affairs, culture, political situation in the Czech Republic and our relations with foreign countries.

The general situation in the country is valued by people in more of a critical way (39 %) than positively (10 %), although it is most often seen as “neither good nor bad” (49 %). On the other hand, the evaluation of the current situation from the point of view of family is predominantly positive - 43 % of respondents see their current life and the life of their family in bright colours, the same number of respondents consider it to be “neither good nor bad” and only 13 % of them had a critical view in this respect.

The general political orientation of the Czech population is one of the topics the Public Opinion Research Centre has been systematically monitoring. In the left-right political spectrum, the Czech population is divided in a way that corresponds with most patterns in the population. The largest group of people shows average figures and their numbers are gradually decreasing towards the edges. In total, the number of left-wing respondents is slightly smaller than the number of right-wing respondents.