Prague , April 11 (CTK) – Czechs trust President Milos Zeman being able to solve the migrant crisis most of all politicians, according to a poll conducted by the Median agency for daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) that released it yesterday.
More than 52 percent of Czechs consider Zeman the most trustworthy in this respect.
He is followed by Deputy PM and ANO chairman Andrej Babis (46.3 percent), PM and opposition Social Democrat (CSSD) head Bohuslav Sobotka (38.4 percent) and Interior Minister Milan Chovanec (CSSD; 34.8 percent). Opposition Freedom and Direct Democracy leader Tomio Okamura is trusted by 28 percent.
The right-wing opposition leaders, Miroslav Kalousek (TOP 09) and Petr Fiala (Civic Democrats, ODS) lag behind the government coalition, being trusted by 14 and 13.3 percent, respectively.
Asked which party can deal with the migrant crisis in the best way, ANO was named by 44 percent of respondents, followed by the CSSD with 41 percent.
The poll shows that when it comes to the migrant crisis, people still trust mainstream political parties rather than anti-immigration groupings.
However, sociologist Daniel Prokop points out that one-quarter of people admit they would be able to vote for extremists if they considered them a safeguard to halt migration.
Support for extremist parties might rise in the future if the migrant wave really afflicted the Czech Republic and were no longer a hypothetic problem. “Without it, the parties of one issue have only a limited chance,” Prokop said.
MfD writes that the leading position of Zeman in this poll was also due to the high and still rising public trust in him. At present it amounts to 60 percent.
Babis is also considered a very trustworthy politician. However, unlike Zeman, Babis almost does not comment on the migrant crisis. Yet he scores points on this agenda, MfD says.
“He is a technocrat politician. People who fear migration are often voters with a local focus and they prefer such technocrats,” Prokop said.
Chovanec, who is dealing with refugee issues, enjoys high trust, too, though lower than Babis.
Unlike the CSSD, ANO is not the government party responsible for migration policy and this is why it is not criticised by the opposition and the president over it, MfD says.
It seems that politicians who comment on migration quite harshly are more trusted than the moderate ones, Prokop said.
Fiala is the only politician who enjoys a higher trust in connection with solving the migrant crisis than in general, MfD notes.
The poll also shows that most Czechs consider the migrant crisis a serious issue on the basis of which more than 51 percent of them will decide whom to vote. Yet it is not as important as “big economic topics,” such as unemployment and pensions, that up to 90 percent of Czechs highlight before elections, MfD adds.
