Current Affairs Disenchanted Czechs say country not going in the right direction

Czech parliament, photo: CTK “Well this situation, which is in a way unprecedented, is the result of a very long, slow trend of growing dissatisfaction and disenchantment among people. As I see it, it reflects two things: one is dissatisfaction with the government now in office. There was a lot of hope for change one year ago after the elections – people expected the new parties that got into Parliament to bring about change for the better – and that was not the case. And, secondly the country’s economic prospects are not good, all of Europe is having problems and people feel that as an existential threat and expect a deterioration of their living standard.”

But for people to say the country is not going in the right direction –that is a very strong statement – are we talking about politics, the economy or moral values?

“Well there has not been much change concerning party preferences. The country is still split down the middle in terms of voter support for right and left wing parties. There has been no major shift in this respect. As concerns the nature of the disappointment - that is quite sweeping. Jan Hartl Two or three years ago there was relative material satisfaction and a growing awareness that things were going wrong morally –in terms of values. People came to realize that the standard of living and material conditions do not equate with a happy life, that there are many other important things such as interpersonal relationships, the level of morals, corruption which destroys the norm and order in society. That was a positive development that we observed two years ago – now it is also present, but moreover mixed with a high level of insecurity. Especially older people and even middle-aged people around fifty feel insecure on the job market. So it is moral disenchantment together with expectations of a deteriorating economy.”

Do we know how this has affected the young generation?

“Yes, we know that the young generation is more positive. Life is ahead for them and they feel that they can overcome those difficulties with greater ease than the elderly. But still, we do not see much activity on the part of young people. They are more or less observers of political developments and it seems that they do not much care or want to get involved. There were positive signs during the last elections when young people got a bit more active but it cannot be seen as a general trend –that young people would like to get involved to improve the situation – on the contrary.”

Do you see any tendencies towards radicalization as a result of this general dissatisfaction?

“Fortunately we have not observed any tendency towards growing extremism, or radicalization of people. Czech public opinion is still calm, conservative and relatively patient. Of course, generally speaking, the given circumstances make it vulnerable to possible future populist policies and even growing authoritarianism, but that is not present in the data yet. In this respect we are relatively happy and this seems to be a stable and constant situation.”