The populist Freedom and Direct Democracy party (ID-affiliated), which has strong anti-EU rhetoric, is losing its voters, fresh opinion polls show.
Even in times of economic crisis and a tense social atmosphere due to high inflation and war in Ukraine, support for political parties is very stable, the election model of the Kantar CZ agency published on Sunday shows.
But for the Freedom and Direct Democracy party, support has dropped to 8.5%, Deník N reported. Another fresh opinion poll conducted by the Median agency confirms the trend, putting the anti-European party at 9.5%, which is 2.5 percentage points less than in November 2022.
At the same time, support of the current government parties, particularly the conservative block, remains stable.
The drop in the polls for Freedom and Direct Democracy can be explained by voters switching to the other opposition party: the ANO party (Renew affiliated) of the former populist prime minister and unsuccessful presidential candidate Andrej Babiš.
After losing the recent presidential election in January, Babiš revealed that he plans to convince voters from other political parties.
“ANO’s main task now will be to convince Freedom and Direct Democracy and ČSSD (Czech Social Democratic Party) voters that the only political force to defend their interests against the current anti-social government is the ANO movement,” Babiš said in January.
According to Czech political analyst Lukáš Jelínek, ANO has already taken voters from social democrats in previous years, so Freedom and Direct Democracy voters remain to “be caught”.
In an op-ed published by iRozhlas, Jelínek also warned that ANO could use the strategy adopted by the Polish Law and Justice Party (PiS) by embracing “social conservatism” and eliminating the traditional clash between the left and the right.
Source: euractiv.com
