Survey: MP is least respected job

Czech society has had enough of its politicians and their ties to corruption, according to the results of a new opinion poll finding members of Parliament and Cabinet ministers among the least respected professions in the country.

Ministers and members of Parliament saw the biggest drop in esteem among 26 professions in the survey by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM), falling by 12 and nine percentage points, respectively, since the survey was last conducted in 2007.

Members of Parliament fared so badly they actually replaced cleaners - long ranked last by a considerable distance below other professions in previous CVVM studies - at the bottom of the list in this year's survey.

The study's author, CVVM researcher Milan Tuček, told The Prague Post public dissatisfaction with the entire political landscape was clearly evident in the findings.

"The decline of ministers and members of Parliament is without a doubt connected to issues of corruption," Tuček said, "as well as other aspects such as the appointment and dismissal of individual ministers, their competence level for running their appointed ministry and so on."

For the survey, the CVVM interviewed 1,006 people from a cross-section of society in early June, offering them a list of common professions and asking them to rank how highly they valued each job.

The rankings for many jobs were broadly similar to the last version of the survey, although a number of the top-rated professions including doctors, scientists and teachers got lower ratings this time without falling in the list.

Aside from politicians, only journalists saw a fall of more than five percentage points during the four-year period, from 53 to 46, something researchers put down to their association in the public mind with the world of politics. One of the few professions to see a significant rise in value was accountants, suggesting the economic downturn may be concentrating minds.

When asked which factors were most important to them when considering their respect for different professions, respondents ranked a job's required education level, its importance to society and the responsibility it carries as the three most important considerations.

CVVM said it was notable that having decision-making powers or a high income scored much lower in this country than in international studies of a similar nature.

The institute said this reflects the esteem in which professions like doctors and teachers are held in the Czech Republic even though their salaries are comparatively low.

The pollsters added that aside from favoring professions similar to their own, generally the gender, age and education of respondents did not significantly affect their responses.

For comparison, the institute cited a survey from 1967 that ranked government ministers as the most prestigious job. By contrast with today's top-ranking professions, doctors were only ranked third, while school teachers were placed at 14th on the list.

Tuček admitted the data from the communist era "reflects real attitudes toward the government at the time because of self-censorship and concerns about expressing a critical opinion."

However, he said, it was certain that "when compared with the 1960s, Czech society is now more open in its criticism of the institutions in power."

Tuček said it was also notable that esteem for government ministers lasted through the 1990s and that their "drop in prestige is a matter of the past few years only, perhaps because of corruption and the number of recent government reformations."

- Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Read more: The full CVVM survey report (Czech only, pdf download)

Bill Lehane can be reached at
blehane@praguepost.com