Most Czechs dissatisfied with political situation - poll

People's "deep dissatisfaction" has prevailed since this spring when the lower house expressed no confidence in Mirek Topolanek's government, STEM said.

President Vaclav Klaus's performance has been positively assessed by 61 percent of Czechs, while 58 percent are satisfied with the cabinet of Jan Fischer and 30 percent with the work of parliament, the poll showed.

People's satisfaction with the president has grown by 6 percentage points since October and has become the highest this year.

The cabinet lost 2 percentage points in the past month.

The number of those satisfied with parliament has grown by 2 percentage points.

People's dissatisfaction with the overall political situation is a long-standing phenomenon in the Czech Republic, STEM said.

Last time it was before the general election in spring 2006 that more than 30 percent of people were satisified in this respect," the poll's authors said.

"A slight improvement" was registered when the Czech Republic took over the EU presidency as of January 2009, but the deeper the decline was after the parliament voted no confidence in the government in March.

In April 2009, 90 percent of Czechs voiced dissatisfaction with the political situation, STEM said.

In the latest poll, satisfaction was voiced by 13 percent of the respondents, a crushing majority of whom, however, said they are "fairly satisfied." Only one percent of those polled said they are "definitely satisfied."

On the other hand, most Czechs said they are satisfied with the performance of the president and the government.

"People ascribe only a small portion of guilt to the caretaker cabinet and to the president for what they consider a bad political situation," said STEM.

Fischer's caretaker cabinet has been positively assessed even by two-fifths of supporters of the Communist party (KSCM) and President Vaclav Klaus's performance over the past month has been praised by as many as three-fifths of voters of the KSCM and the other left-wing party, the Social Democrats (CSSD).

"We can suppose that this unusually high portion is connected with Vaclav Klaus's steps during the Lisbon treaty ratification. The portion of those praising Klaus's work as president has also grown among supporters of Topolanek's Civic Democratic Party (ODS), to 77 percent from 61 percent in April, shortly after the fall of Topolanek's government, STEM said.

Klaus is a well-known critic of the EU system, of national states transferring their powers to Brussels and of the EU reform Lisbon treaty, which he was reluctant to sign and did so only in early November after Prague met his demand and pushed through an opt-out for Czechs from the treaty's Charter of Fundamental Rights.

Autor: ČTK
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