The senior opposition ANO movement would win a Czech general election if held in September. Photo credit: Z. Kolarik, Brno City Municipality.
Prague, Oct 12 (CTK) – The senior opposition ANO movement would win a Czech general election if held in September, with 30.5% of the vote, followed by the senior government Civic Democrats (ODS) with 16%, according to the latest election model from the Median agency, released to CTK today.
The junior opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) would finish third with 11.5%, closely followed by the junior government Pirate Party with 11%. The order of the top four parties remained unchanged from the previous month.
Ex-PM Andrej Babis’s ANO sees its support slightly increased, while the SPD’s support has declined.
Several parties, including the junior government TOP 09 and Mayors and Independents (STAN), and the extra-parliamentary Social Democrats (CSSD), were hovering around 5%, within the margin of error of the parliamentary threshold, and it is therefore not possible to say whether they would qualify to enter parliament.
“With their number of votes added together, the parties of the governing SPOLU alliance would win 24.5% of the vote, and the Pirates/STAN alliance 16.5%,” wrote Median.
This means that if the parties ran in the same electoral alliances as in the last general election in October 2021, the governing alliances would finish just 0.5% ahead of ANO. However, this is by no means assured, and the Pirate Party and STAN have already indicated that they will not be running together next time.
SPOLU comprises the ODS, TOP 09 and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL).
Compared to the August figures, ANO’s support rose by 1.5 percentage points, ODS was unchanged, SPD declined by 2.5%, and the Pirates by 0.5%.
TOP 09 would win 6% if elections were held in September, up from 3.5% in August, and support for STAN increased to 5.5% from 4%.
On the contrary, support for CSSD and KDU-CSL dropped from 5% to 4.5% and from 3.5% to 2.5%, respectively.
The margin of error is 1.5% for the smaller parties and 3% for the stronger ones, Median said.
Out of those polled, 57.5% said they would take part in the elections if held in September, and another 15% would consider it. 10% said they would probably not cast their ballot and 17.5% said they definitely would not do so.
“There appears to be an increasing readiness to take part in elections, but the declared turnout is usually higher than the real one,” wrote the Median agency, which conducted the poll of 1,010 people on 1-30 September.
Almost one third of the respondents said they would like to take part in the elections but have not yet firmly decided which party to support. Another 15% were uncertain about both their participation and the party to support. The parties’ voter support may change dynamically, Median said.
