Prague, Jan 28 (CTK) – Czech President Milos Zeman succeeded in persuading more undecided voters to support him in the week before the January 26-27 presidential election runoff than his rival, academic Jiri Drahos, according to a Median poll released to CTK on Sunday.
Zeman primarily managed to persuade those who originally had not intended to vote at all to go to the election and give him their votes.
In the final round, Zeman won the votes of 23 percent of those who did not go to the first round, while Drahos only 12 percent.
Zeman was re-elected for another five years, gaining 51.4 percent of the vote and closely beating Drahos in the runoff.
The hardcore voters of Zeman and Drahos did not change their stances before the runoff vote, the Median says.
At the beginning of the week, 30 percent of the addressed voters wanted to elect Zeman, while on Saturday morning, it was 35 percent, but support for Drahos remained the same – 33 percent, the Median poll shows.
Three-fifths of respondents believed in Zeman’s victory the whole week, while under 30 percent believed that Drahos would win.
Nine-tenths of Zeman’s voters from the first round supported him in the runoff as well, while in Drahos’s case it was only four-fifths, which might be a result of a negative campaign, Median says.
Drahos also won support of some two-thirds of voters of the three unsuccessful bidders from the first round, Michal Horacek, Pavel Fischer and Marek Hilser, but some 20 percent of their voters did not cast their ballots in the second round
Moreover, Zeman gained the votes of 72 percent of his voters from the first direct presidential election that he won five years ago, while Drahos attracted voters of Zeman’s then rival candidate, former foreign minister Karel Schwarzenberg.
Zeman managed to attract primarily people under 50 with elementary education (rise from 22 to 31 percent) and working people with various income levels (7-percentage-point increase). About a half of pensioners and the unemployed voted for Zeman, while only one-third of them for Drahos.
Out out the parties’ followers, Zeman won most of the votes from voters of the government ANO, the Communists (KSCM), the Social Democrats (CSSD) and the Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), while supporters of the other parties in parliament mostly voted for Drahos.
Zeman enjoyed a considerably higher support in the municipalities with a high share of workerd in the industry and building sector and with a high number of inhabitants facing distraint. Drahos was more successful in the towns where more people work in services.
The poll was conducted on 1146 respondents from January 22 till 27.
