People put the most trust in those close to them and in themselves. From individuals, who influence the opinions of citizens, teachers and television and radio presenters enjoy the greatest trust. Confidence in public opinion researchers, newspaper journalists and mayors is considerably lower, and it gets even worse for priests. Trust in senators and politicians is very low, when only about every fifth respondent voiced his trust in them.

At the end of November and beginning of December last year, 30 % of respondents described their health condition as being good and 49 % as being quite good. A fifth saw it as bad and one percent as very bad. One third (33 %) of respondents said that they regularly looked after their health, about a half (49 %) sometimes and almost one fifth (18 %) not at all. As disclosed by respondents, they care for their health more often by doing sports, furthermore by staying in the countryside – going for walks and trips, and observing rules of a correct regime of living, or more precisely healthy diet.

In the survey from the end of November and beginning of December 2002, more than two thirds (68%) of respondents describe the standard of living of their household as being good, contrary to this 31% describe it as being bad. In comparison to 2002, this is the most positive recorded result which, however, is not surprising, because the period of the end of November and beginning of December, or more precisely the beginning of December, is the time of year when the subjective evaluations provided by respondents is the best when compared to the long-term cross-section.

At the beginning of next year, it will have been 10 years since Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. In its regular survey ‘Our society 2002’, the Public Opinion Research Centre investigated how this historic move is nowadays viewed. Ten years ago, only a small proportion of citizens (22%) agreed with the move, while the majority (60%) say they were opposed to the break-up and 18% do not remember.

The NATO Summit in Prague became the most significant event in late November and early December, with the election ranking second. These events followed: 2002 floods, end of the presidential mandate of Václav Havel and the planned attack of the USA and Great Britain on Iraq. The accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union topped the limit of monitoring again. We can anticipate that the importance of this event will continue to grow as the referendum on the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union and the accession date are nearing.

From the offered presidential candidates it is Otakar Motejl, whom the Czech citizens regard as the most acceptable. He now enjoys both the highest number of supporters (45%) and the lowest number of opponents (41%) and only in his case the supporters’ percentage is at least a little prevailing. The second most acceptable candidate is Petr Pithart, who would be welcomed as president by 37% of the respondents, however already more than a half of them does not want him to become the president.

The president is trusted by 58% and distrusted by 40% of citizens. Confidence in the president has been relatively stable at least since 1999 a regularly surpasses the 50% limit. The government of Vladimír Špidla enjoys confidence of 51% and is not trusted by 45% of the respondents. This third survey of the new coalition cabinet trustworthiness level confirms the September and November findings and is by far higher than the one expressed to the leaving Zeman’s cabinet in July (43%).

For the third time this year, we asked respondents to evaluate the performance of individual parties in the Chamber of Deputies. The best assessment is given to the CSSD (viewed positively by 55% of respondents), whereas the worst to the KSCM and the US-DEU (viewed positively by only 24% of respondents). Comparing the current results with the findings of the May survey, we can clearly see that there are fewer positive and concurrently more negative assessments of the US-DEU and the ODS.

In the beginning of December, 46 % of Czechs, 61 % of Poles and 68 % of Hungarians had firmly decided to participate in the hypothetical referendum on the accession of their country to the EU. In the CZ a third (31 %) intends to “more likely” participate – in Poland and Hungary it is only 10 %. Poles most frequently refused to take part in the referendum, reaching the share of one fifth. The proportion of those that are considering their participation in the referendum amounts to about 10 % in all the three countries.

The best positions are still in the hands of ČSSD, who occupy the first three ranks - Stanislav Gross (he enjoys confidence of 74% of the respondents), Petra Buzková (60%) and prime minister Špidla (56%). They are followed by the resigned US-DEU leader Hana Marvanová (38%) and KDU-ČSL leader Cyril Svoboda (33%). The top ten also features ČSSD ministers Součková (31%) and Škromach (28%), Václav Klaus from ODS (30%) and two more members of KDU-ČSL Jan Kasal (29%) and Zuzana Roithová (27%).