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.

Monitoring citizen satisfaction with the exercising of the democratic rights forms a regular part of polls conducted by the Public Opinion Research Centre. The possibility to speak openly about problems and shortcomings in the society was positively assessed by 6 out of 10 persons polled in January 2004. A third of respondents were also satisfied to be able to influence how issues are solved in their village or town.

The standard of the Czech economy is evaluated as being positive by 45% of Czechs, 54%, on the other hand, are rather critical about it. As far as the present economic situation is concerned, the Czech general public is relatively concerned about it. Only 6% of respondents consider the current situation to be good, whilst 57% think that it is bad and 35% describe it as being neither good nor bad.

Those polled who preferred or sympathised with a particular political party were, as part of our January survey, asked a repeated question examining the intensity of the relation with this political party.

Only 12% of voters called themselves staunch party supporters. Almost every third voter (32%) now prefers a particular political party just because it annoys them the least (i.e. there is no party that the voter would ‘like’).

At present it is president Václav Klaus, who is viewed as the most trustworthy person among our top politicians. He enjoys confidence of seven out of ten respondents and since our last survey in October of last year his credibility has grown of 14 % points together with parallel drop of 13 % points as far as the number of people, who do not trust him, is concerned. Václav Klaus has for the first time reached the first rank on our imaginary rank, outrunning the permanently highly evaluated minister Gross.

The results of the Public Opinion Research Centre survey shows that 70 % of single women and 69 % of single men would like to get married in the future. 12 % of single women and 6 % of single men decided not to conclude a marriage in their future life. The most frequently named reasons for getting married were “children” (66 %) and the opinion that "two is better than one” (34 %), a quarter of respondents consider taking marriage vows to be “obvious and normal”.

In January 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 do not want to vote. The remaining 15% of respondents were still undecided. The declared willingness to participate in the election to the European Parliament does not match the willingness to participate in an election to the Chamber of Deputies.

January survey of CVVM focused – among other issues – on the evaluation of Vladimír Špidla’s coalition government. In this respect it was investigated the citizens’ satisfaction with the declared government programme, government activities, its communication with the wide public and its members. Majority of the respondents expressed discontent in all the monitored aspects. Relatively the highest level of satisfaction concerns the declared programme, which was approved by two fifths of the interviewees, while almost a half of them (48 %) declared discontent with it.

Some measures aimed at the elimination of tax evasion or other forms of economic crime such as alcohol stamps (71%) and the ban on the sale of alcohol and cigarettes in market places (68%), property assessment (59%) and the ban on payments in cash from a particular amount and higher (51%) and the introduction of cash registers (58%) enjoy a relatively strong or strongly prevailing support. As far as the changes in the tax rates are concerned, the general public would not object if the duty on cigarettes (66% for) or alcohol (63% for) were to be increased.