Zeman visiting Brno. Photo: Hrad.cz
Prague, Oct 5 (CTK) – Public trust in Czech President Milos Zeman slightly rose again in September after its steep decline in May and now 51 percent of people trust him, according to a poll conducted by the CVVM polling center and released on Tuesday.
Confidence in the government has slightly increased, too, since June, while both the lower and upper houses of Czech parliament, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, have lost confidence.
Mayors and local authorities traditionally enjoy the highest public trust.
Trust in Zeman was 3 percentage points higher in September than in June and 1 percentage points higher than in May when it dropped from 55 percent to 41 percent month-on-month. This decline was connected with the government crisis that affected the country in May.
The crisis erupted on May 2 when PM Bohuslav Sobotka (Social Democrats, CSSD) announced that he would offer the resignation of his government due to dubious business activities of Deputy PM and Finance Minister Babis (ANO head). But three days later, Sobotka changed his mind and he only proposed Babis’s dismissal to Zeman. He was hesitating, but he sacked Babis on May 24 eventually. Babis was replaced by Ivan Pilny (ANO) at the Finance Ministry’s helm.
“Compared with May, we can see a long positive development in the government confidence, though in this case the trust and mistrust levels still remain considerably worse than in the period before the May decline caused by the above mentioned government crisis,” the pollsters said.
In September, 28 percent of people trusted the government, which is only 2 percentage points more than in June.
Besides, trust in the Senate has dropped by 5 percentage points to 25 percent since June and the Chamber of Deputies has lost 2 percentage points, being trusted by 21 percent.
Changes in confidence in other constitutional institutions did not exceed the framework of the statistical margin of error.
Three-fifths of respondents still trust mayors and local authorities, while two-fifths trust regional governors and assemblies.
The CVVM poll shows that only 13 percent of respondents were satisfied with the political situation in September, which was 3 percentage points more than in May when the public satisfaction with politics was the lowest since the end of 2013.
Since May, the share of people dissatisfied with the political situation has dropped by 12 percentage points to 55 percent.
The poll was conducted on a sample of 1000 respondents from September 4 to 14.
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