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.

In January 2004 the work of the government was evaluated positively by 27 % of the respondents and negatively by 66 %. Only one year ago this proportion of positive and negative answers was almost the opposite: in January 2003 the government was evaluated positively by 48 % and negatively by 39 % of interviewees. The substantial drop in government work evaluation occurred in between January and June 2003.

The January census of the CPOR surveyed the satisfaction of the public with the approved state budget. Questions were aimed both at the satisfaction with the fact that the Czech Republic has an approved state budget for 2004 and also at the formulation of the budget. The survey showed that the general public’s attitude to the fact that the budget had been approved was relatively positive. Only 11% of Czechs considered this fact as being bad, contrary to 42% who thought it was good.

According to the survey of constitutional institutions realised in mid-January, the highest level of confidence of Czech citizens belongs to the president – he is trusted by 72 % of the respondents. The government enjoys confidence of more than a third of the respondents (37 %). People show the lowest level of confidence in the Senate (20 %) and the Chamber of Deputies (26 %). Regional councils are trusted by 41 % and local councils by 61 % 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 70% of those surveyed having the right to vote (‘definitely yes’ by 31% and ‘probably yes’ by 39%), while 22% said no (13% ‘probably not’ and 9% ‘definitely not’) and 8% did not know.