In the February survey, the Public Opinion Research Centre extensively treated questions concerning the position of the president of CR. First of all we interrogated all the respondents about which electoral method is, according to their point of view, the most suitable for the Czech Republic.
The Czech public in general and also all the important subgroups of the population agree that the president of the republic should be elected by all voters.
This electoral method was in total favoured by 68 % interviewees. The current electoral method (president elected by the Parliament) is considered the most suitable by slightly less than one fifth of the respondents (16 %) and 11 % view as optimal the method of election by a wider group of electors.
Furthermore, the survey dealt with the question of which type of personality was – according to the public – the most suitable for the office of the president of the republic. The results show that the largest group of Czechs (47 %) prefer to have on the post of the president of the republic a person without party affiliation and approximately one tenth (12 %) of the respondents even prefers a person, who has never been involved in politics. A candidate affiliated to a certain political party is viewed as optimal by 7 % of the interviewees, including 1 % of those, who consider a leader of a political party as the most suitable presidential candidate. About two fifths (41 %) of the respondents say that it makes no odds whether a presidential candidate is or is not affiliated to a certain political party.
Another part of the survey was generally aimed at the range of presidential competencies. More than a half of the interviewees (52 %) hold the view that the competencies of the president should maintain the current extent. Roughly one third of the respondents (32 %) declared for extending the presidential competencies, whereas approximately one tenth of the polled citizens (9 %) thinks that on the contrary they should be reduced.
