Political

The results of the survey show that none of the current pretenders to the post of the president enjoys prevailing support of the public. In case of all the monitored candidates, whom the respondents considered for the post of the president individually, the number of adversaries was always higher than the number of supporters. The relatively highest preferences of all the considered persons were achieved by Otakar Motejl and Petr Pithart (both 43 %), followed by Václav Klaus (35 %), Miloš Zeman (29 %), Jaroslav Bureš (25 %), Jaroslava Moserová (16 %) and Miroslav Kříženecký (12 %).

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.

The Public Opinion Research Centre was investigating the decision-making of the electorate throughout the ‘super election’ year 2002. With the benefit of hindsight, we would like to compare how voters made their decisions prior to the June election to the Chamber of Deputies and the autumn elections to the Senate and municipalities. At which stage of the election campaigns did voters decide whom to vote for? Do they decide in the last minute or do they know well in advance whom to support? In the event of elections to the Senate and municipalities, decisions on who will get my vote are made significantly later than in elections to the Chamber of Deputies.

In December survey the CVVM SOÚ AV ČR focused (among other issues) also – in connection with the upcoming end of Václav Havel’s constitutional mandate – on the evaluation of the president’s work according to six selected criteria. The number of positive opinions in the case of the president strongly prevailed, in particular in such attributes, where the interviewees evaluated his performance of constitutional functions, maintaining the authority and respectability of the presidential office and above all presentation in abroad.

In late November and early December, 40% of those polled said they were satisfied with the current political situation in the Czech Republic (‘very satisfied’ – 2.4%, ‘quite satisfied’ – 37.5%), whereas 56% were dissatisfied (‘quite dissatisfied’ – 44.6% and ‘very dissatisfied’ – 11.8%) and 4% did not know. The satisfaction with the political situation has been gradually growing since March 2002, and has reached 40% for the first time since 1996.

At the beginning of next year, it will have been 10 years since Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. In its regular survey ‘Our society 2002’, the Public Opinion Research Centre investigated how this historic move is nowadays viewed. Ten years ago, only a small proportion of citizens (22%) agreed with the move, while the majority (60%) say they were opposed to the break-up and 18% do not remember.

The NATO Summit in Prague became the most significant event in late November and early December, with the election ranking second. These events followed: 2002 floods, end of the presidential mandate of Václav Havel and the planned attack of the USA and Great Britain on Iraq. The accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union topped the limit of monitoring again. We can anticipate that the importance of this event will continue to grow as the referendum on the accession of the Czech Republic to the European Union and the accession date are nearing.

From the offered presidential candidates it is Otakar Motejl, whom the Czech citizens regard as the most acceptable. He now enjoys both the highest number of supporters (45%) and the lowest number of opponents (41%) and only in his case the supporters’ percentage is at least a little prevailing. The second most acceptable candidate is Petr Pithart, who would be welcomed as president by 37% of the respondents, however already more than a half of them does not want him to become the president.

The president is trusted by 58% and distrusted by 40% of citizens. Confidence in the president has been relatively stable at least since 1999 a regularly surpasses the 50% limit. The government of Vladimír Špidla enjoys confidence of 51% and is not trusted by 45% of the respondents. This third survey of the new coalition cabinet trustworthiness level confirms the September and November findings and is by far higher than the one expressed to the leaving Zeman’s cabinet in July (43%).

For the third time this year, we asked respondents to evaluate the performance of individual parties in the Chamber of Deputies. The best assessment is given to the CSSD (viewed positively by 55% of respondents), whereas the worst to the KSCM and the US-DEU (viewed positively by only 24% of respondents). Comparing the current results with the findings of the May survey, we can clearly see that there are fewer positive and concurrently more negative assessments of the US-DEU and the ODS.