Political

Almost half of czech citizens (48%) were ( some at least partly) interested in american presidential elections. One out of ten respondents expressed, that he is deeply interested in it. On the contrary a third was very little interested in presidential elections in the USA. 19% of respondents did not care about it at all.As an often expressed public attitude to result of american presidential elections appeared an indifferent answer „ Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied“ (46%).

In a research realized in December 2004 CVVM focused on attitude of czech public to Office of a General Ombudsman. Almost 7 out of 10 respondents answered a question correctly, that the Office of a general Ombudsman is represented by Otakar Motejl. Almost a quarter of respondents admitted to not to remember, who holds Office of an Ombudsman,

6% of responents chose wrong answer.The confidence in Office of General Ombudsman was expressed by almost a half of czech citizens.

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.