Andrej Babis’s ANO are leading in polling intentions for the next Czech general election with 38.5% of the vote, according to Kantar election model released by Czech Television yesterday. This was the highest support ever registered for the party by the Kantar agency,
The next largest party is the Civic Democrats (ODS) of Prime Minister Petr Fiala, with 14.5% of the vote. No other party has more than 10%. The junior coalition Pirates received 9.5% and Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) 9%.
Two more government parties would enter the Chamber of Deputies: the Mayors and Independents (STAN) with 7% and TOP 09 with 5%. The combined total support for all five government parties is 38%, just behind ANO.
The survey also asked specifically about voting intention if ODS, TOP 09 and the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) ran in the Spolu alliance, as they did in the last elections in 2021. In this case, they would win 20% of the vote, compared to 39% for ANO.
The poll showed that the current extra-parliamentary parties, including the Communists (KSCM), the Social Democrats (SOCDEM, formerly CSSD), and other smaller far-right parties, are still far short of the 5% threshold for parliamentary representation.
Kantar analyst Pavel Ranocha said ANO is benefitting from the fact that it still has the clearly highest number of strongly convinced voters, and that most parties that would enter parliament have been losing voter support. He said voters switch to ANO because smaller parties do not offer anything concrete.
People also say they would cast their vote for ANO because of the movement’s leaders – Babis, its shadow government head Karel Havlicek and its lower house group head Alena Schillerova. The pollsters said the results of the poll might be influenced also by the protests of Czech farmers.
According to the Kantar election model, ANO would have 93 seats in the 200-member lower house, Spolu 49 seats, the Pirates 23, SPD 21 and STAN 14. This means that the five parties of the current government would have 86, down from their current majority of 108 seats.
If the three government parties did not run as the Together coalition, ANO would have 95 seats, ODS 35, the Pirates 24, SPD 22, STAN 15 and TOP 09 nine, according to the Kantar model.
Ranocha noted that ANO is getting close to the level of 100 mandates and it could possibly win a majority in the lower house itself. “It is also interesting that a potential coalition of ANO and the SPD is even approaching a constitutional majority,” he said. A constitutional majority is 120 lower house seats.
Kantar agency carried out the poll on 1,015 respondents from 12 February to 1 March.
Model of Czech general election (without coalitions; results in percent):
| Feb 2024 | Jan 2024 | Nov 2023 | |
| ANO | 38.5 | 35 | 34.5 |
| ODS | 14.5 | 15.5 | 12.5 |
| Pirates | 9.5 | 9.5 | 11.5 |
| SPD | 9 | 9.5 | 10 |
| STAN | 7 | 6.5 | 7 |
| TOP 09 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| SOCDEM | 2.5 | 4 | 3.5 |
| KSCM | 2.5 | 3 | 2.5 |
| KDU-CSL | 2 | 3.5 | 2 |
