Prague - Jan Fisher is still the leading presidential candidate, according to a July opinion poll conducted by the Median polling agency.
Jan Fisher would take 34.5 percent of the vote, a 2.5 percentage point increase from June. Fisher was followed by Milos Zeman, Jana Bobosikova, Karel Schwarzenberg (government TOP 09), Vladimir Dlouhy and Jiri Dienstbier (opposition CSSD).
So far, opinion polls on the upcoming presidential election have been conducted only by two smaller, private polling agencies: Factum Invenio and Median.
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"It is the first direct presidential election, voters have no experience with it. That's why even surveys are only popularity tests at this moment - they have nothing to do with the election," said political scientist Tomas Lebeda.
Importantly, the Factum Invenio polls included some candidates who have not confirmed their intention to run in the election, above all Jan Svejnar, Tomio Okamura or Zdenek Tuma.
"The public takes them into account, they have significant support," said Factum Invenio's director Jan Herzmann.
According to Factum Invenio's polls, Jan Svejnar is the second most popular candidate after Jan Fisher.
"Once the list of official candidates is closed, we will include only them," Herzmann added.
The Czech republic's largest polling agencies, public CVVM and private STEM have not published any opinion polls on the presidential election yet. Both agencies explained they are waiting for the official list of presidential candidates.
However, STEM was commissioned by the opposition Czech Social Democratic Party (CSSD) to conduct a private opinion poll in June. According to the survey, the most popular candidates were Jan Fisher (32 percent) and Jan Svejnar (19 percent).
