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A survey of voting intentions released by the Median agency on Monday has shown the left of centre Social Democrats in front with 33 percent of preferences from those questioned. The right of centre Civic Democrats had 27.8 percent according to the survey carried out in January. The Communist Party would receive support of 12.8 percent with the TOP 09 party getting 9.3 percent and the Christian Democrats 7.4 percent. The Green Party would fall just under the minimum 5.0 percent ceiling for winning seats in the lower house with 5.5 percent. Elections to the Czech lower house will be held on the last weekend in May.

State-controlled carrier Czech Airlines transported 4.7 million passengers in 2009, a drop of 1.5 percent compared with the previous year. The airline suffered a severe drop in passengers at the start of 2009 but by the end of the year there were signs that demand was picking up again. Separately, a special board meeting on Monday discussed an offer from the country’s biggest charter company, Travel Service, to take over Czech Airlines’ charter division. No decision, apart from a resolution that no airlines would be sold, was taken with further talks between the two companies planned.

The Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, says he would regard it as an unusual step if any ministers in his caretaker cabinet stood in general elections in May. Speaking on a TV debate show on Sunday, Mr Fischer said however that such a candidature would be a “tax” for the fact his government will have been in office for considerably longer than was originally planned. There have been some suggestions that the minister of the interior in the interim cabinet, Martin Pecina, could stand for the Social Democrats. They and the county’s other main party the Civic Democrats agreed on the make-up of what was billed as a caretaker government of technocrats. It took office last May after the fall of the previous Civic Democrat-led cabinet and was due to guide the country until snap elections in October. However, a legal challenge led to Mr Fischer’s government staying in power until this coming spring, when the lower house’s four-year term comes to an end.

The Czech president, Václav Klaus, has begun a three-day visit to Egypt. On Sunday evening he will take part in an event marking the launch of the Czech-made Škoda Superb car on the Egyptian market. Mr Klaus will meet the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak on Monday, as well as taking part in a signing of the Arabic version of his book Blue Planet in Green Shackles, which questions the belief that mankind is responsible for global warming. On the last day of his visit the Czech president will hold talks with both Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and the general secretary of the Arab League, Amr Moussa. It is Mr Klaus’s second visit to Egypt.