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.
Almost one half of the interviewees (48.9 %) stated that the president should above all be a representative of our country. A quarter of Czech citizens also think that the president should attend to international relations and approximately the same number of respondents expressed the view that the president should attend to ordinary people, to be and communicate with people. Every tenth citizen of our country believes that the president should above all protect the interests of the Czech Republic and see to its advancement. Approximately one tenth of the respondents also thinks that the president should monitor the government, hold discussions with politicians, settle political arguments and judge new laws. We were further interested in the question of whether the president should according to the public opinion attend rather to specific or more general problems. The largest part of the respondents (42 %) assumes that the Czech president should attend to specific questions solving. Another third of the Czech citizens believe that he should deal with such questions only in exceptional cases. Slightly less than one fifth of the respondents declared that the president should above all be concerned with more general questions of political culture, public morals et al.
