Monday News Briefing

Supporters of Jan Fischer (unaffiliated) and Jiri Dienstbier (Social Democrats) proved decisive in last month's presidential election, according to a PPM Factum poll released today. Zeman, who will take his oath as president on March 8, received over 900,000 votes from supporters of Fischer and Dienstbier, two of seven candidates who did not advance to the second election round. His rival, Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg (TOP 09) only received 400,000 of their votes. According to the poll, voters supported Zeman most often because "he is Czech" (19 percent of his voters), is close to people (17 percent), and because they consider him a guarantor of social welfare (16 percent). Schwarzenberg scored points with voters mainly for his intelligence and "sense of decency" (16 percent of his voters). Another 16 percent cast their votes for him mainly to prevent Zeman's victory. 

The Supreme Administrative Court (NSS) has received 105 complaints about the first direct presidential election in January, but more than a half of them arrived after the legal deadline and will not probably be dealt with. Officials said this may be a record number of complaints the NSS has received in connection with an election.   

The number of marriages in the Czech Republic has nearly halved since 1989, and almost 50 percent of local marriages end in divorce, according to the Czech Statistical Office. The country currently sees some 45,000 marriages annually. Twenty years ago, when the independent Czech Republic was established, the rate was near 75,000. 

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