Left wing parties fare miserably in mock election held in Czech schools

Two weeks before general elections, the NGO People in Need has just released the results of a mock election held in Czech schools last month. The results suggest that if pupils between 15 and 19 could all go to the polls, many would back right-wing parties. TOP 09, the Civic Democrats and Public Affairs all fared well. By contrast, the Social Democrats would barely scrape into the lower house, and the Communists would be shown the door.

Photo: CTK

Around 20,000 students between the ages of 15 and 19 from 135 Czech schools took part in the mock election in late April under a project organized by the non-governmental organisation People in Need to boost student interest in the political process. Now, the results are in: on Friday organisers confirmed that TOP 09 had come first with almost 27 percent, followed by the Civic Democrats and Public Affairs, while the Social Democrats finished a poor seventh, with just over five percent of the vote.

Originally, the result was to have been kept under wraps until after the actual elections, to reduce the danger of the information being abused by the political parties in the heated election campaign. That plan, however, was scrapped, after some schools began leaking results.

Source: www.peopleinneed.cz

The mock election was not without controversy. The Social Democrats attempted to pressure schools to drop out (more than 60 did), or to limit the project’s impact. That move was seen by many as ham-fisted, compounding an already rocky relationship between the Social Democrats and younger voters. Despite the difficulties, until the student election results were announced on Friday, most Social Democrats still hoped their party would do well. Among them was prominent MP Jan Hamáček, who says the party’s regional governors should not have come out so strongly against the mock vote:

“My personal opinion is that the reaction from the regional governors was perhaps not the most fortunate and I think that we should have been more open and just let it happen.”

Do you think that your poor result is indicative of a broader preference by younger people?

“Well, I wouldn’t overestimate the result, because I think that the sample was still fairly small – around 130 schools. On the other hand, it is an indication in a way that we should communicate better with the younger generation and is an indication that we should do something about it.”

The apparent disconnect between the Social Democrats and first-time or future voters is not something they will have to worry too much about in two weeks’ time when Czechs go to the polls: public opinion agencies have repeatedly put the Social Democrats on track to winning by a strong margin.