Czech Politics: Fiala government

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

The Czech presidential polls, some we now see in retrospect (a la Brexit, Trump victory, and a number of Senators, Governors and Congressmen in the US), were very wrong, some tinged with must-get-Zeman-out-at-all-costs bias, and rather 'see-through' going about it at that.

I don't think they were wrong. It was always going to be a close race; in the last stage of the campaign, Zeman successfully managed to paint Drahos as a liberal/someone whose agenda was not in the Czech interest/someone who remained silent about his real agenda (e.g. the dumb comment about migrant quotas being "manageable"), which swung public opinion by a few points and managed to get his base out to vote, enough for him to win.

Thanks, DavidB (and also thanks for hosting this Forum, fun topic).

Though polling is never scientific, more often than not, the trends they indicate are often correct.
However in this case, DavidB, every poll in the run-up to the run-off, and I mean EVERY poll, stated that DRAHOS was ahead. Some pollsters and prognosticators (now tarnished, as far as many are concerned) would exhort that DRAHOS' lead was even more dramatic than these polls revealed, that DRAHOS would, in fact, take regions in the country thought to be safe for ZEMAN, the public was just that much disgusted with ZEMAN. Many fell for/went along with that line.

Forum participants, and writers from other sites I comment in, would decry my view that these polls are unreliable, that the Czechia mood would actually lift ZEMAN to victory in the end. These decriers (here too), would insist, sometimes vehemently and nastily, that ZEMAN will lose, "be creamed" (one quote) because "every single poll, EVERY SINGLE POLL, shows Drahos smashing Zeman" (another quote). "Look at the polls," I'd hear incessantly.

These very wrong polls led these very bull-headed people like the Pied Piper.

You must be fun at parties. I am not sure what do you mean that polls were wrong but as far as I remember most of the polls were showing either small dominance of Zeman or small dominance of Drahos. There is also always statistical error and never dominance of any candidate was greater than 3-4%. Polls were not wrong, people just don't know how to read them and thinks that they are showing exact result as it will be.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

As far as I remember EPP parties ruled out cooperation with Babis, at least as long he have some shady law problems.