Prague - The popularity of Czech president Václav Klaus has been sinking since last year, but Czechs largely remain supportive of their president.
Based on the survey by Public Opinion Research Centre, more than half of respondents still consider president's performance positively.
"It seems that people have been more critical of Klaus in January 2008 than in previous years. People were more critical in all respective areas of president's performance, positive evaluation sunk by ten percent," says Paulina Tabery from the Research Center.
The survey was conducted among 1,046 people three weeks before the presidential election.
People are still very positive about Klaus´s promoting dignity and respect of his office (79 percent) and his fulfillment of constitutional duties (70 percent).
Good authority
More than half of the respondents consider Klaus as being a good authority for people.
Only sixty-one percent of people think that Mr. Klaus does a good job representing the Czech Republic. That is the category in which Mr. Klaus lost the most points.
In January 2007, 84 percent of people valued his representation skills as good or somewhat good which means that the Czech president lost 23 percent of positive reactions in the last twelve months.
There are also less people who have trust in him as fas as his constitutional dzties are concerned. The respondents described his involvement in political events as negative (59 percent).
Contact with citizens
The worst results brought the question about president's contact with citizens and his awareness of their problems - only 36 percent of respondents thought he scored well.
"The proportion of positive evaluations remained the same, but there are more negative views," Paulina Tabery from the Public Opinion Research Centre says.
The perceptions of Vaclav Klaus depend mainly on the social status of the families and party preferences.
Mr. Klaus is perceived positively by people with higher social status and those who vote for the Civic Party (ODS). More critical are people with lower levels of income and communist and social democrat party voters.
