Prague, Dec 29 (CTK) – As many as 84 percent of Czechs want the system of direct presidential election to be preserved, according to an opinion poll the Median agency conducted for Czech Radio this month.
People’s conviction that a direct presidential election is better than the previous system of the president being elected by parliament has intensified in the past months, the poll showed.
“The share of those supporting the direct election is bigger than in the spring of 2015 when we addressed the same question to people. Supposedly, it is supported by a crushing majority of those who voted for Milos Zeman in 2013. Besides, there is also a group of voters who are eyeing other, hypothetical candidates for the next election,” Median analyst Daniel Prokop said.
Zeman, former Social Democrat prime minister, won the first direct presidential election in early 2013, defeating eight rival candidates.
In the runoff vote, he gained 54.8-percent support, compared with 45.2 percent received by his right-wing rival, former foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09).
In April 2015, the preservation of the direct presidential election was supported by 78 percent of those polled, while 17 percent said they wished the return to the previous system of president being elected by the two houses of parliament.
The number of the direct election supporters has increased by 6 percentage points since, and the number of opponents, now at 12 percent, has dropped by 5 percentage points.
Seventeen percent of the respondents said they considered the presidential election the most important type of election, while 44 percent said this about the general election and 36 percent said both elections have equal importance.
The next general election is due in autumn 2017 and the presidential election in early 2018.
