Two opinion polls published over the weekend found ANO’s poll lead shrinking slightly, while the party remained significantly ahead of its rivals.
The STEM electoral model published by CNN Prima News TV yesterday had the opposition ANO, led by former prime minister Andrej Babis, on 30.7% of the vote, its lowest level since the beginning of the year, while a Kantar election model published by Czech Television put ANO on 35%, its lowest since January. However, the STEM and Kantar polls both found ANO leading comfortably over the second-placed Spolu coalition, but 10% and 15% respectively.
Spolu, the governing coalition composed of the Civic Democrats (ODS), Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) and TOP 09, has been hovering around 20% of support for several months in both polling models.
The opposition far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), whose list is supported by smaller far-right parties, and the Mayors and Independents, currently the junior partner in the government, are polling between 10-12%.
Both polls see a further two parties qualifying for representation in parliament. According to STEM, the Pirates and the nationalist-populist ‘Stacilo!’ coalition would surpass the required 5% threshold, while according to Kantar, the Motorists party would qualify instead of Stacilo!
“Although ANO remains the strongest opposition force, it has so far failed to return to the stronger position in the electoral preferences it enjoyed in the first quarter of the year,” said the analysts from STEM, adding that support for ANO is the lowest since the beginning of the regular monitoring by the STEM agency.
According to both election models, the Social Democrats (SOCDEM), the Greens, and the extra-parliamentary populist party Prisaha would all clearly fail to meet the 5% threshold.
According to STEM, ANO’s vote-share would translate to 76 seats in the 200-seat Chamber of Deputies, followed by Spolu (48), SPD (28), STAN (23), Stacilo! (13), and the Pirates (12).
About 1,500 respondents took part in the STEM model conducted in recent days, and 1,000 participated in the Kantar CZ poll between April 14 and May 2. The statistical margin of error in the latter ranges from 1.1 percentage points for small parties and movements to 3.5 points for larger political entities.
