Czechs trust Pavel and Macron the most, and Putin and Trump the least.
More than half of Czechs trust French President Emmanuel Macron, a survey by the CVVM agency found. However, Petr Pavel has by far the greatest trust. He received the best ratings particularly in representing the country abroad, with 77 percent of respondents evaluating him positively. On the other hand, the highest level of distrust was recorded by Russian President Vladimir Putin and American head of state Donald Trump.
52 percent of people trust Emmanuel Macron, 31 percent do not trust him. The rest are unsure or do not know Macron. Ukrainian President Zelensky is trusted by 44 percent and Polish Prime Minister Tusk by more than a third of us. A similar level of trust is also held by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. Unlike Tusk, almost half of Czechs express distrust towards her, and 16 percent of people do not know her at all.
The popularity of the Czech president remains high
And how is Petr Pavel doing? People most appreciate how our president represents the country abroad and how he maintains the dignity and gravity of his office.
According to 69 percent of survey participants, the president is an authority in the eyes of the citizens, and according to 67 percent, he fulfills the functions given to him by the constitution. The opinion that the president is in contact with citizens and knows their problems is shared by two-thirds of Czechs.
However, according to the CVVM survey, there is more criticism of his influence on domestic political life.
"Roughly a third of respondents view Petr Pavel's performance negatively,"
stated the authors of the survey.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that in all examined areas, a majority of respondents believe the president performs well, the agency's analysts noted.
Petr Pavel, aside from having the support of voters from Spolu, STAN, and the Pirates, also has a relatively strong position among supporters of other groups.
“He received support from, for example, 240,000 ANO movement voters or 150,000 Motorist voters. Among Motorist voters, Petr Pavel even won by a ratio of 60:40 percent,“
said to Czech Radio, sociologist of the Kantar agency Pavel Ranocha.
His performance as head of state was more favorably assessed by respondents with higher education, younger people, and those who voted for him in the second round of the presidential election in January 2023.
Better ratings than Pavel were rarely achieved by former presidents. For example, Miloš Zeman achieved in CVVM surveys during his entire tenure only exceptionally a majority share of positive ratings, and in none of the questions did he ever receive more than 70 percent positive ratings.
Putin and Trump remain at the bottom
The highest level of distrust in our country is raised by Russian President Vladimir Putin. This applies to up to 87 percent of Czechs. His contemporary, Donald Trump, is distrusted by 83 percent of citizens.
The research agency pointed out that in some cases, trust is significantly divided according to the voting preference of the respondents. For example, 21 percent of Czechs trust Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, while 67 percent do not. In the case of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, the ratio is 22 percent to 59 percent.
“Approximately two-thirds of SPD voters and two-fifths of ANO voters trust these two politicians,”
stated in a press release CVVM. Among the voters of the Motorists, more than a quarter of respondents trust Orbán, and a fifth trust Fico. Voters of the Spolu coalition, STAN, and Pirates express very low trust in these two politicians, in the range of single-digit percentages.
A similar correlation is evident with Zelensky. Among STAN voters, trust is 72 percent, for Pirates it is 78 percent, and among supporters of the Spolu coalition it's 82 percent.
“Among voters of other political subjects, the percentage of trust falls below a quarter: for the voters of Motorists themselves, it is 24 percent, for voters of ANO it is 18 percent and for voters of SPD it is nine percent,"
the statisticians added.
Unknown Statesmen
The researchers also claim that not knowing specific politicians is common for us. The share of "unknown" responses is reportedly in double digits for most of them. The highest was for Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, in whose case it was 62 percent. It was similar in the case of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Among the individuals with a relatively high degree of unfamiliarity is, perhaps surprisingly, Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is unknown to one-third of Czechs. However, there are more polarized opinions about this figure among the Czech public. Only 7 percent of those surveyed tend to trust him. On the other hand, more than half do not trust him.
For Xi Jinping, Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin, the level of trust is low across most voter groups. Nevertheless, differences can be observed among the individual groups of respondents, with a higher level of trust appearing among some voters of the current government's parties. While more than a quarter of SPD voters and also every tenth voter of ANO and Motorists Themselves trust the Russian president, among SPOLU, STAN, and Pirates voters, the level of trust recorded was zero.
Sources: author's article, CVVM, ČTK, Czech Radio
