Press releases

Confidence in the army (56%) and courts (41%) has reached its historical maximum, however, in the case of media (57%) the level of public confidence is at its historical minimum. The police is trusted by 53%, Constitutional court by 51%, churches by 34%, banks by 33%, trade unions by 29% of the respondents. Political parties enjoy confidence of only 12% of the respondents, 79% regard them...

The majority of respondents evaluate the access to education (71%) and health care (66%) as being very good. Other investigated areas such as job opportunities, social security for the elderly, standard of living for the handicapped, and mainly financial conditions to start a family or to get a flat are assessed in a very critical way. The respondents were unanimous in their views on life conditions of officials, civil servants and entrepreneurs which they considered to be the best (78% or more precisely 74%).

The following two statements met with the greatest response from those surveyed. 91% of them agreed with the statement ‘hard-working people deserve to earn more than others’, whereas 6% did not. The respondents took a similar stance on the last statement saying that ‘it is right that people with more talent and abilities make more money’. A total of 90% of respondents agreed with this statement, while 6% of those participating in the survey disagreed.

In the survey from the end of February to the beginning of March 2002 three fifths (60% of respondents) the standard of living of their household as being good, compared to 37% who described it as being bad. At the end of March and beginning of April, the ratio of the positive evaluation was increased by 6% to a total of 66% with a currently decreasing critical evaluation of one’s household by 5% to a total of 32%.

No major sociodemographic differences occurred in respect of CSSD supporters (22%), except a higher percentage of white-collar employees. The ODS (20%) is attractive primarily for respondents with good living standards and voters with university or full secondary education. The party also occupies a strong position among businessmen and tradesmen, white-collar employees, intellectual workers and among Prague inhabitants.

87% of respondents have consumed alcoholic drinks at some point within the last 12 months, one quarter admitted consuming alcoholic drinks at least twice a week. About a third of the respondents know somebody, who uses cannabis-based drugs, one quarter has been offered such a drug and 16% admitted trying it. Experience with ecstasy was confessed to by 4% of the citizens approached. A quarter of the respondents have met hard drug users, 12% were offered a hard drug and 2% tried it.

Governments of the CSSD and the Coalition (22%) or the ODS and the Coalition (20%) belong to the most acceptable post-election coalitions.

As the terrorist attacks on the USA and the conflict in Afghanistan are diminishing in importance, public attention is turning to domestic events. For the first time since November, the public paid in January more attention to the domestic political scene than the foreign one, a trend confirmed and becoming more apparent in February. If it had not been for the Olympic games, the domestic political scene would probably have captured even more attention.

The results clearly reveal that the ODS and the CSSD stand the greatest chance of succeeding in the election, and in this respect there are not any significant differences between them. Almost three quarters of respondents think that both of these parties belong to the two most successful ones, with a difference occurring only in respect of their position. In contrast, citizens are of the opinion that the Coalition stands a significantly lesser chance of succeeding, expected to come first or second only by a tenth of respondents, while approximately the same percentage of respondents think that the KSCM will achieve the same results.

Approximately, a half of respondents (52 %) express contentment with their personal life, a little more than a third (36 %) is half-satisfied and for 12 % dissatisfaction prevails. The results displayed in Table No. 1 show that the attitude to personal life has gradually changed only a little since 1996, when this question was given to the respondents for the first time. Satisfaction during the entire period ranges between 51 – 55 %, dissatisfaction represents 11 – 15 %.