More than ninety percent of Czechs are unhappy with the country’s current political situation, according to a poll conducted during the second half of April.
The poll by the STEM polling organization found that 58% of those responding said they were clearly discontented with the current political situation with 34% saying that they were quite unhappy with it. The discontented totaled 92%. On the other hand, just 1.0 percent said they were clearly satisfied and 7.0 percent quite satisfied with the situation.
“The average satisfaction with people about the current political situation has fallen to the levels of the deepest political crisis of the Czech state and the evaluation of developments is not at all favorable,” STEM said in its commentary of the results released Thursday. The polling agency pointed out however that two-thirds of Czechs are broadly happy with their life situations.
‘The average satisfaction with people about the current political situation has fallen to the levels of the deepest political crisis of the Czech state and the evaluation of developments is not at all favorable.’
The poll was carried out between April 18-29, in the wake of court sentences being handed down on de-facto leader of the Public Affairs (VV) party Vít Bárta and his former fellow member of parliament Jaroslav Škárka. Bárta was given an 18 month suspended sentence for bribery with Škárka sentenced to three years in prison for corruption and banned from serving in parliament for 10 years.
In the wake of the court sentences the VV party split up with deputy prime minister and leader of the center-right government’s anti-corruption fight Karolína Peake leading a group of lawmakers out of the party. They are now trying to form a political party which would support the center-right coalition of Prime Minister Petr Nečas (Civic Democrat, ODS).
Similar low levels content were registered according to STEM at the end of 1999 and 2000, at the time of the so-called “Opposition Agreement,” under which the ODS allowed a minority center-left government under Social Democrat leader (ČSSD) MilošZeman to govern; during the fall of Social Democrat prime minister Stanislav Gross over the unexplained financing of his flat in the spring of 2005 and during the political stalemate following elections in 2006.
