The European elections will be a referendum on the government, the survey shows

The opposition succeeds in turning the European elections into a referendum on the government of Petr Fiala (ODS). The opportunity to express an opinion on the current cabinet is the strongest motive for Czechs to go to the polls in a month, a new survey shows.

As part of mapping the mood of the Czechs before the European elections, the Ipsos agency asked respondents to choose from eight options why they want to vote. Most of them, 37 percent, checked “because I want to express my opinion towards the current government”. Only in other places did motifs somehow related to the European Union appear.

It is thus confirmed that the June vote will primarily be a test of Fial’s coalition, which is what the opposition parties are striving for.

“The European elections will be a referendum on the government,” Michal Kormaňák, director of external relations at Ipsos, assessed the result of the survey among a representative sample of 1,000 Czechs from the end of April. The agency only asked those who “plan” to vote for reasons for participation.

“Frequency of theme ticks to comment on the government increases with the age of the respondents. Older and oldest voters are today typical supporters of ANO. The leader of the movement, Andrej Babiš, succeeds in recasting the European elections in the vote for Fial’s coalition,” added Kormaňák.

The domestic agenda also dominates the European elections in a number of other EU countries. However, according to Kormaňák, Ipsos does not have data to compare to what extent Czechs with 37 percent deviate from the European average or how this motive has changed over time.

“Before the last European elections, in 2019, we didn’t ask about it,” he explains. Helmsman. According to him, the figure of 37 percent alone did not surprise him.

“What I didn’t expect was that the motive to penalize the government would be in the first place. It shows that people consider the coalition to be jointly responsible for everything that is happening and also that the Czechs still can’t connect the EU with anything. In short, they don’t know what to check, so they choose because of the current government,” he says.

As the second option for why they plan to go to the upcoming European elections, people most often marked “I want to influence the direction and content of EU policy” (32 percent). The third then “I want concrete problems to be solved in the EU (migration, climate change, economy…)”.

26 percent of respondents chose “my views and interests to be represented at the European level” as the main motive. This motive is strongest among young voters under the age of 24.

Primary voters are also going to the polls in greater numbers. On the contrary, their slightly older fellow citizens, people in the most productive age of 25 to 34, are the group that, according to Ipsos, will miss the European elections the most.

“This age group is below average interested in any elections, not only the European ones,” points out Michal Kormaňák. “They deal with mortgages, children, and public affairs go by the wayside.”

Pensioners stand at the opposite end of the scale. People over the age of 65 are most often interested in the elections, including the European ones, which also strengthens the conclusion that the European vote in the Czech Republic will be a test of strength between the supporters of Babiš’s ANO and the government parties.