Think tank: Czech media favoured Schwarzenberg

Prague, Feb 7 (CTK) - The printed Czech media largely sided with conservative presidential candidate Karel Schwarzenberg before the recent presidential race won by leftist candidate Milos Zeman, an analysis of the think tank KohoVolit.eu ("Whom to Vote For") said Thursday.

The media may have harmed official Social Democrat (CSSD) candidate Jiri Dienstbier and unaffiliated candidate Jan Fischer, the institute said.

Fischer and Dienstbier were third and fourth in the first round of the presidential race with 16.3 and 16.1 percent, respectively.

Zeman and Schwarzenberg advanced to the runoff vote.

Zeman was not significantly hurt by the media as the information was not new and unlike Dienstbier and Fischer he could rely on a "long-standing presence in the Czech political space," the analysis said.

Zeman won the second round with 54.8 percent of votes, while Foreign Minister Schwarzenberg obtained 45.2 percent.

KohoVolit.eu examined seven printed media, the dailies Mlada fronta Dnes, Lidove noviny, Hospodarske noviny and Pravo as well as the weeklies Respekt, Reflex and Tyden.

As far as the frequency of articles is concerned, the media did not prefer some candidates to others. The differences were given by the topics opened up by the papers in connection with the individual contenders.

The media wrote about Fischer in connection with his "rather poor performances in televised debates," the financing of his campaign and his past in the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia before the 1989 fall of the Communist regime.

The media described Dienstbier's effort to gain support by the Communists (KSCM) and the tension arisen due to the parallel candidates of himself and Zeman, a former Social Democrat leader.

When it comes to the main topics associated with Fischer and Dienstbier, none of them were clearly positive.

"The anti-Communist card is likely to have influenced the final third and fourth places of the candidates," analyst Katerina Knapova said.

In the case of Schwarzenberg, the articles were largely positive. Especially in January, the support voiced to him by various public personalities appeared in the media.

In the second round, there was a clear difference between the way the media described Schwarzenberg and Zeman, Knapova said.

"When it comes to Zeman, there was a domination of the articles focusing on his negative and aggressive campaign, the tension inside the CSSD and in the left caused by Zeman and the Sudeten German question and the Benes decrees," she added.

Concrete issues with clear negative connotations prevailed in Zeman's media picture, while "in the case of Schwarzenberg, the media under observation continued with the trend of a certain vagueness that was already apparent before the first round."

Kohovolit.eu was established in 2006. It wants to support information to voters and civic participation.