Political

All respondents having the right to vote were traditionally 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.

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

In as assessment of the current state of some affairs and developments in our country, the environment became most positively evaluated area, receiving 36% of favourable opinions, 14% of unfavourable opinions; while roughly a half of respondents were unable to decide. In all other instances, the number of dissatisfied usually outweighed the number of satisfied by a large margin. The respondents were highly critical of the health sector (35%) and the functioning of authorities (33%).

None of the candidates, who in the beginning of February 2003 stood for the presidency, enjoyed strong public support. The number of supporters of any of the pretenders has not substantially surpassed the level of one third and in all cases these were outnumbered by their adversaries. Roughly the same level of preferences – a third of citizens – was achieved by candidates Petr Pithart, Otakar Motejl and Václav Klaus.

As far as the situation relating to Iraq is concerned, the basic monitored question is the agreement or disagreement with the discussed military intervention. At the beginning of February 2003, a military action was supported by a total of 22% of the Czech population, which is a little less than the figure in the preceding month. Since the start of US efforts to continue the fight against terrorism in this way, this recorded level of agreement has been at its lowest as of yet.

In its February survey, among other things, Public Opinion Research Centre focused on some aspects of relations between Czechs and Slovaks. The first question was to establish how often Czech citizens visited the Slovak Republic. The following questions concentrated on issues of how many people had relatives or friends in Slovakia and to which degree knowledge of the Slovak language was wide-spread. The respondents’ answers show that a third of Czech citizens visit the Slovak Republic less often than they did before the disintegration of the common state.

The respondents are of the opinion that no major changes occurred in the country over the course of last year. Primarily, they are convinced that no significant change happened in the sphere of citizen participation in the decision-making process about public issues, and in the observance of human rights. There is also a widespread opinion that the situation in culture and education has not changed.

The respondents almost universally agree that they choose a certain party because they identify with its programme (91%), with the party ideology (89%) and because they place trust in the party leaders (88%). There is slightly less broad consensus about the importance of existing activities of the party (78%). Two fifths of supporters of political parties say that their preferences are influenced by the political orientation of their family.

In the beginning of February 2003 the Public Opinion Research Centre focused in its survey on the question of how citizens currently view their local authorities. The survey was about to find out (among other issues) how many citizens have come into contact with their local council within this or last year, how people view the work of their local councils, to what extent they are satisfied with the work of their local councils and whether they took part in the municipal elections held this autumn.

Currently, 69 % of respondents claim a large or partial interest in the entry of the CZ to the EU. When evaluating how much information relating to the procedure of entering the EU Czech citizens had at their disposal, similarly as before, there was a prevailing feeling of insufficiency of the information (56 %); while 40 % of respondents are satisfied. Comprehensibility of the available information is rated considerably better (55 % satisfied, 39 % dissatisfied).

When asked an open question ‘What three qualities do you think the president should have?’, those polled most frequently held the opinion that the head of state should be educated, morally impeccable and non-partisan. The answers to the question ‘What are you expecting from the Czech president?’ most frequently mentioned the representation of the state, impartiality and objectiveness, social sympathy and interest in people.