In early December, 15% of those polled were satisfied with the political situation, whereas 54% expressed dissatisfaction. 28% of respondents were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied. The level of dissatisfaction has reached its highest since 2003 when we started asking the question in a new manner. As regards political orientation, the level of satisfaction is higher among sympathisers of the CSSD (32%) and the ODS (18%).

Most of Czech citizens already traditionally trust in the president of the republic (66 %). On the contrary, the lowest level of confidence belongs to the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, which are currently trusted by only about one fifth of the respondents. Compared to November there was a significant drop in the level of the public’s confidence in the government (-6 % points), now trusted by 29 % of the interviewees.

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).

As respondents stated, 4% of households purchased a new flat last year, 8% bought a new car, 29% went on a holiday abroad and 46% bought new furnishings. 3% of households plan to buy a new flat in 2004, 4% want to buy a new car, 31% plan to buy a holiday abroad and 35% are already planning to purchase new furnishings. The survey further showed that 38% of respondents stated that they could not put money aside towards monthly savings and 32% evaluated their monthly savings to be as little as only up to a thousand Czech Crowns.

At the beginning of December 2003, 57 % of respondents of the “Czech Society” survey said they would participate in elections to the European Parliament. On the basis of these data it would be possible to expect the participation in these elections of about 32 - 36 % of voters. The number of those that stated they would not participate in the elections grew from 16 % in October 2002 to 27 %.

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 65% of those surveyed having the right to vote (‘definitely yes’ by 30% and ‘probably yes’ by 35%), while 29% said no (15% ‘probably not’ and 14% ‘definitely not’) and 6% did not know.

In our November survey we asked several questions concerning unemployment; 7 out of 10 respondents indicated that the current level of unemployment in our country was too high, one quarter of Czechs believe that it is adequate and only 1% of our inhabitants consider it to be too low. One quarter of Czech citizens think that the unemployed in our country cannot find any work. A half of respondents think that the unemployed cannot find suitable work and the opinion of the remaining quarter of respondents was that the unemployed were simply not interested in finding work.

Similarly, as in the previous two years, even this year citizens consider media to be the main guarantor of providing information about the integration of the country in the European Union. They also find the function of the government to be very important. More than two fifths of respondents included elected representatives of both chambers of the Parliament, and also scientific and educational institutions among the most important entities.

One of the fields, which was researched within the section “Historical and Ethnic Regions in the CZ”, were ideas of people about differences in inhabitants of individual regions compared with foreigners and ethnic minorities. The results show that compared with other surveyed options the fewest people dare to claim that they would recognise inhabitants of their own region, most of them are convinced they would recognise foreigners on a short-term stay in the CZ.

During the November survey carried out within the project Czech Society 2003 we among other things were finding out the opinion of citizens concerning the importance of historical and ethnic regions. The first question was to establish general viewpoints of whether historical and ethnic regions were important, the second question surveyed opinions concerning the significance of regions from the point of view of identity strengthening and culture development.