Political

Czech citizens answered following question in December 2004. „Do you think that situation of some monitored areas (in Czech Republic) became better, worsened or remained unchanged.“According to respondents the situation in most of monitored areas remained almost unchanged.Czech citizens positively evaluate development in area of supply of goods and service, when 58 % of respondents judge it positively.

In December 2004 Czech citizens expressed the highest level of trust to the president of the country, when three quarters of respondents expressed their confidence in him. Local councils were found trustworthy by more than a half of the interviewees (60%) and approximately two fifths of the polled citizens trusted in their regional council. The government’s position worsened again, 28% of respondents expressed their trust in goverment.

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 (in %).

The question ‘Imagine that an election to the Chamber of Deputies is held next week.

As a result of November survey czech citizens mostly evaluate present performance of president Vaclav Klaus positively .The best evaluated president activities are :how president cares of dignity and respect of his office (89%), how president represents Czech Republic in foreign countries (86%), how presidents fulfills his constitutional function (84%). 72 % of respondents evaluate authority of president Vaclav Klaus, 55 % of interviewees judge positively president‘s influence on internal politics‘ life.

Trust prevails over mistrust in the case of V. Klaus, T. Blair, J. Chirac, M. Dzurinda, J. Kerry and A. Kwasniewski. For other personalities in international politics included in the survey, there is prevailing mistrust among the Czech public, most significant being for Fidel Castro, Jasir Arafat, Alexander Lukashenko and also – though on a smaller scale – for the Presidents of the USA and Russia George Bush and Vladimir Putin.

In November survey of the Centra pro výzkum veřejného mínění (Public Opinion Research Centre), realised within the project Naše společnost 2004 (Our society 2004), we interrogated the respondents about how they trust the individual constitutional institutions.

In November 2004 Czech citizens expressed the highest level of trust to the president of the country, who enjoyed confidence of almost three quarters (73 %) of the respondents.

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 question was: ‘Imagine that an election to the Chamber of Deputies is held next week. If you participated, which party would you vote for?’). The structure of the answers given is summarised in the table.

Those polled who preferred or sympathised with a particular political party (829 respondents) were, as part of an October survey, asked a repeated question examining the intensity of the relation with this political party.

Only 12% of voters classified themselves as staunch party supporters. Traditionally, the largest group approving of most of party activities consistently amounted to between 40 and 50% of those polled.

As ”definitely important” for quality discharge of a regional council member’s office people regard the candidate’s moral qualities, knowledge of the region’s problems, ability to solve conflicts, ability to express ideas and expert knowledge. As ”quite significant” qualifications for successful discharge of a regional council member’s office the respondents also regarded knowledge of foreign languages, good relations with central bodies, experience with work in public administration on municipal level, spirit of enterprise, administrative experience and university education.

As for opinions concerning the benefit of introducing self-governing regions the Czech public remained significantly ambivalent. Approximately one quarter of the interviewees believe that the introduction of self-governing regions, which have now been existing for four years, was proved right. However, approximately the same part of the respondents holds the very opposite view. Another quarter stated that this issue cannot be judged after such a short time period.