The government remains at 28% trust, the same as in the summer. Photo credit: hrad-cz.
Prague, Nov 22 (CTK) – One-third of Czechs have trust in President Miloš Zeman, according to a poll carried out by the Public Opinion Research Center this autumn, while the governing cabinet and the Chamber of Deputies each have the trust of 28% of respondents.
While trust in the president and the lower house has slightly increased since the summer, trust in the cabinet is static. Satisfaction with the overall political situation remains low.
Zeman’s position has improved by 5 percentage points compared to the summer poll. Trust in the president is higher among people above 65, people from vocational schools and secondary schools without school-leaving exams, citizens of villages and small towns, inhabitants of Bohemia, especially the Central-Bohemian Region, pensioners, left-wing voters, and people from the political centre. He finds greater support also from voters of the Social Democrats (CSSD) and senior opposition party ANO.
The government remains at 28% trust, the same as in the summer, though this figure was 4 percentage points higher a year ago, when the previous cabinet was still in power.
The current cabinet of PM Petr Fiala (ODS) was appointed by the president on 17 December 2021. Its supporters mainly come from young people between 15 and 29, university graduates, people from the Central-Bohemian Region and Bohemia in general, students, people in managerial professions, higher and lower skilled workers, right-wing and right-centre voters and, logically, from voters of the SPOLU coalition (ODS, TOP 09, KDU-CSL) and the PirSTAN coalition (Pirates, STAN) which compose the current government.
The Chamber of Deputies and the Senate find their supporters among similar demographic groups as the government. Trust in both houses has increased by 2 percentage points since the summer. While the Chamber of Deputies has the same support as a year ago (28%), the Senate’s position has improved by 4 percentage points to 34%.
The regional authorities have the trust of 48% of respondents, an increase of 7 percentage points since summer. Regional governors are trusted by 46% (+3 p.p.). Municipal authorities have the trust of 63%, and mayors by 62%. In both cases, reported levels of trust have been above 60% in the long term.
13% of citizens find the current political situation satisfying, 62% are dissatisfied, and the rest are “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.” These are roughly the same numbers as in the summer, so satisfaction with the political situation remains the lowest since May 2017, during the escalating government crisis involving the coalition of CSSD, ANO and KDU-CSL led by Bohuslav Sobotka (CSSD).
“In the long-term comparison, however, people’s contentment with the current political situation is still much higher than in the period between 2012 and 2013,” CVVM noted.
The poll was carried out on 821 respondents between 8 September and 8 November.
