TOP 09 comes in first in mock student elections

The right-of-centre TOP 09 group has come in first in a mock election held at more than 430 Czech secondary schools on Wednesday and Thursday, three weeks before polls open for a real general election. TOP 09, which was part of the previous coalition government, received 17.8 percent of the mock vote, followed by the Pirate Party and ANO, a group founded by Czech multibillionaire Andrej Babiš. More than 50,000 secondary school students aged 15 and over took part in the voting, organized by the human rights NGO People in Need to popularize elections with first-time voters.