Prague, Oct 21 (CTK) – Many Czech voters made their decision at the last moment and they preferred new groupings – the ANO movement, Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD) and the Pirates – to traditional parties, sociologists whom CTK addressed said shortly after the elections Saturday night.
“There was up to a million voters who were hesitant,” sociologist Jan Herzmann said.
More than five million voters took part in the general election held on Friday and Saturday. The turnout was 60.8 percent.
Herzmann said the hesitating voters helped new political groupings.
Sociologist Stanislav Hampl, from the ppm factum polling agency, said the Pirates probably profited the most from the hesitating voters who possibly supported also the SPD of Tomio Okamura and to a certain extent ANO.
The Pirates and the SPD appeared new and fresh, while the election campaign could have played a role in case of ANO, he said.
Hampl said the poor result of the Social Democrats (CSSD), worst in the party’s history, seemed no surprise to him. “Its trend was declining, the party was in a defensive,” he said.
Herzmann said the CSSD did not manage the end of the campaign well and its election leader Lubomir Zaoralek seemed uncertain. “When somebody is uncertain, a hesitating voters do not follow him,” he said.
The Communist Party (KSCM) won markedly fewer votes than opinion polls predicted to it. “The KSCM had a stable support in the past. Either some people did not cast their votes or they eventually supported Okamura or Babis,” Hampl said.
On the contrary, the Pirates achieved a better result than the opinion polls indicated. Herzmann said this is thanks to their good campaign that did not focus only on the Internet but also on traditional media and outdoor advertising. The Pirates made a fitting offer to voters who wanted to express their protest, he said.
