Poll: Social Democrats have chance to win in regions again

Prague, Oct 7 (CTK) - The Czech Social Democrats (CSSD) have a chance to win in regional elections again, though with worse results than four years ago, according to polls conducted for the public Czech Television (CT) and radio (CRo) and released Sunday.

The Social Democrats are now governing in all regions, except for Prague.

The elections to regional assemblies will be held along with the first round of the elections to one-third of the Senate on October 12-13.

The CSSD is to score the most crushing victory in north Moravia, the Moravian Silesian region, the polls show.

On the other hand, the senior government right-wing Civic Democrats (ODS) may win in east Bohemia, according to one poll, and the opposition Communists (KSCM) in the Usti region, north Bohemia.

The results of pre-election polls can be published until Monday.

The polls conducted by the ppm factum for CRo and the STEM/MARK with SC&C for CT, often differ in the estimates of the parties' election gain, in some cases the difference is more than 7 percentage points.

In the Usti region, for instance, the KSCM would win with 22 percent od the vote, followed by the CSSD with 20.5 percent, according to the poll for CT.

However, the poll for the radio shows that the CSSD would be first (21.4 percent) in the Usti region, followed by the KSCM with 16.2 percent.

The polls broadcast on TV usually forecast better results for left-wing parties than right wingers, while the polls presented on radio often estimated better results for right-wing parties.

This is caused by differences in the calculations of election model and by the polls' length, experts point out.

The fight between the two strongest parties, the CSSD and the ODS, might be very close in Central and South Bohemia regions and in the Plzen (west Bohemia) and Liberec (north Bohemia) regions.

In North Moravia and Karlovarsky (west Bohemia) regions, the CSSD and KSCM might together gain some 50 percent of the vote.

The government TOP 09 with the Mayors (STAN) movement has a chance of entering regional assemblies in all regions, while the Christian Democrats (KDU-CSL) minimally in eight regions.

The KDU-CSL is running in regional coalitions in many regions.

Out of the extra-parliamentary parties, the Party of Citizens' Rights of Milos Zeman (SPOZ) has the strongest support and it might have assemblymen in up to eight regions. Independents would score success in Moravia, according to the polls.

A number of regional groupings, such as the Jihocesi (South Bohemians) 2012 and Severocesi.cz (North Bohemians), could also succeed in the respective regions.

Four years ago, the CSSD won in the whole Czech Republic (except for Prague) gaining 35.85 percent, followed by the ODS with 23.57 percent, the KSCM (15.03 percent) and the KDU-CSL (6.65 percent). No other parties crossed 5 percent in the 2008 regional elections. The turnout was 40.3 percent then.