Czech presidential candidate Švejnar's withdrawal aids Fischer

The announcement by economist Jan Švejnar that he will not be running for president has benefited the candidacy of former Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer the most. The “ppm factum” market survey agency says its electoral model suggests that 27.7 % of those voting will now choose Fischer, 5.7 % more than in August. The agency said the second-place candidate is another former PM, Miloš Zeman, who would be chosen by 22.7 % of voters.

Other candidates are said to lag far behind the two front-runners. The agency said Fischer and Zeman should clearly both enter a run-off after the first round of voting.

The third-place candidate, according to the agency’s model, is Czech Senator Jiří Dienstbier (Czech Social Democrats) with 6.9 % of the vote. Several other candidates earned scores close to his, including fourth-place candidate Vladimír Franz, who has significantly strengthened his position to a projected 6.6 % of the vote. The authors of the agency’s survey said Franz is collecting protest votes. A total of 61.2 % of the electorate is planning to participate in the presidential election, which will take place at the start of 2013.

Tomio Okamura, who has never officially announced his candidacy, comes in fifth place with 6.1 % of the projected vote. He is followed by Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, the head of the TOP 09 party, currently in government, with 5.9 % of the projected vote. The Vice-Chair of the Czech Senate, Přemysl Sobotka, is the candidate for the Civic Democrats (ODS) and would receive 5.7 % of the vote.

Candidate Vladimír Dlouhý has exceeded the 3 % limit for the first time, which the agency says is also due to Švejnar’s withdrawal. A projected 4.5 % of voters would now choose Dlouhý. Former central bank governor Zdeněk Tůma, who has also not declared his candidacy, is predicted to win 4.3 % of the vote. Support for the head of the Sovereignty party (Suverenita), Jana Bobošíková, has dropped to 3.8 %. The Christian Democratic candidate, Zuzana Roithová, would be chosen by a projected 3.4 % of voters.

The survey took place from September 6 – 16 of this year. Around 1 000 adult citizens of the Czech Republic participated in it.