Trust in Pavel remains higher than his predecessor Milos Zeman. Credit: Petr Pavel via Facebook.
Prague, Aug 18 (CTK) – Around 58% of Czechs trust President Petr Pavel, according to a survey published by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM), around the same as in the previous poll from April and May.
However, the other top political institutions have suffered a decline in popularity, especially the government and the Chamber of Deputies, both of which saw a drop of 7 percentage points to 25%. People continue to trust mayors and municipal assemblies the most.
Trust in Pavel remains higher than his predecessor; for most of Milos Zeman’s second presidential term (2018-March 2023), the share of people trusting the head of state was consistently below 50%. By mid-2022, trust in the president had dropped below 30%. Despite a slight recovery, the share of people trusting him had only reached 38% by the end of last year, before Zeman’s departure.
Confidence in the government has remained above 30% since last November, but a significant drop is visible recently. The situation is similar with the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate has fallen 2 percentage points to 36%. For regional governors, confidence is at 43%, also down 2 percentage points. Confidence in the regional assemblies has fallen by 6 percentage points to 42%.
Mayors and municipal assemblies are consistently the most trusted, over 60% for a long time. For municipal assemblies it is now 62%, but 4 percentage points lower than in the previous survey. Mayors are down 2 percentage points to 65%.
Some 15% of people are now satisfied with the overall political situation in the Czech Republic. Again, this is a drop of 2 percentage points.
“Thus, the assessment of the political situation continues to be at a clearly worse level than it usually was between 2014 and 2020, with the exception of two short-term drops in 2017 and 2018 related to the government crisis and problems forming a government after the Chamber of Deputies elections. In the long term, satisfaction with the current political situation remains significantly higher than it was in 2012 and 2013,” the CVVM said.
The survey was conducted from 26 May to 24 July and 929 people took part.
Trust in top political institutions (in percent):
| 8-9/21 | 9-10/21 | 11-12/21 | 3-5/22 | 5-7/22 | 9-11/22 | 12/22 – 1/23 | 2-3/23 | 4-5/23 | 6-7/23 | |
| President | 36 | 35 | 36 | 38 | 28 | 33 | 38 | – | 58 | 58 |
| Government | 32 | 32 | 33 | 35 | 28 | 28 | 34 | 33 | 32 | 25 |
| Chamber of Deputies | 26 | 28 | 30 | 30 | 26 | 28 | 33 | 33 | 32 | 25 |
| Senate | 38 | 30 | 32 | 33 | 32 | 34 | 41 | 36 | 38 | 36 |
| Regional assemblies | 48 | 45 | 48 | 47 | 41 | 48 | 55 | 46 | 48 | 42 |
| Municipal assemblies | 64 | 60 | 61 | 65 | 61 | 63 | 69 | 65 | 66 | 62 |
| Mayors | 67 | 62 | 70 | 63 | 62 | 62 | 71 | 65 | 67 | 65 |
| Regional governors | 45 | 41 | 48 | 44 | 43 | 46 | 53 | 45 | 45 | 43 |
Source: CVVM
pvr/dr/rtj
