In the spring, Pirates and Mayors were the favorites of the election, and Ivan Bartoš was asked if he was ready for the role of prime minister. However, since the start of the campaign in May, the coalition has garnered criticism for the trespasses, and voters began to leave it before the summer. The decline in preferences continues until now. Dissatisfaction is also heard from within the Pirates, according to them the campaign is very defensive. Experts claim that the two parties in the coalition have lost their own identities.
According to surveys, Pirates and Mayors have been experiencing a decline in voter support since the spring, when they successfully attacked the 30% threshold. Current data from the Median agency give them about twenty percent preferences, ie third place – behind the YES movement and the Together coalition. According to the STEM agency, only 18.7 percent of Czechs would vote for them in August.
After the coalition officially launched the campaign and announced the program on May on the Prague waterfront in May with the only woman alone among the leaders in the suit , voters began to turn away from it, according to analysts.
Median director Přemysl Čech explains that the trend of declining support began also due to the fact that the Pirates and the STAN movement tried to communicate their program very openly. “Some people have stopped openness, the assumptions that they will nationalize flats make them uneasy,” he says, adding that people are confused by the latest developments, older coalition voters are considering moving to a rival Coalition Together, and more and more undecided. For young people, the Median agency partly monitors the departure to the SPD or the Oath of the Expoist Robert Šlachta.
“On the one hand, pirates are trying to study ice cream, which will suit the nation the most, but it is more repulsive to many more conservative middle-class voters. Such discussions are very complicated for them,” Přemysl Čech points out. for example, they reaped ridicule on social networks.
At the same time, the collage, on which Jakub Michálek tries to catch thieves with a lasso, caused disappointment, and was later downloaded from the Internet. “Sometimes these steps are more important than a specific program topic. It gets further from the twitter bubble and spreads quickly, other jokes are packed on them,” says political scientist and political marketing expert Marcela Konrádová from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University.
Alžběta Králová from the Institute of Political Marketing points out that marketing shortcomings are noticed mainly on young people on social networks. “Partial unsuccessful contributions are unlikely to reach the average voter. At the same time, however, it is necessary to realize that a large part of the Pirates’ voter core is the younger age group, which is active on social networks .
He also reminds that, unlike the Together coalition, Pirates and Mayors do not have a special campaign aimed at young people.
At the same time, the weaker result of Pirates and Mayors may be related to the declining determination of young people to participate in elections. According to Median, it is the young people who are losing their beliefs about who to vote for. And the coalition has many among its core voters. But they are also declining. “The electoral core of the coalition fell by about five percent in about five months,” explains the Czech analyst.
The coalition and its members blame the neglect of rock and possibly young voters. “I make no secret of the fact that, in my opinion, a number of bad decisions have been made and that some people have been defending them for too long, even though it was clear that they were not good. Markéta Gregorová, who adds that this is gradually changing and the coalition has come up with a new strategy in which it reflects the shortcomings.
At the same time, the MEP is dissatisfied with the performance of Member of Parliament Mikuláš Ferjenčík, who is responsible for the party’s presentation in the campaign. “Mr. Ferjenčík is not a suitable person for the position, he is more of a data analyst than a marketer,” he explains. And she adds that, according to her, she is very busy and the campaign would benefit from a person who would pay full attention to it.
Two weeks ago, debates about MP Ferjenčík’s abilities at the head of the campaign were sparked by the contribution of one of the parties to the open Pirate Forum, which suggested his removal from the leadership of the party’s media department.
Events around the deputy triggered controversy within the party about the quality of the entire coalition campaign. “We have good topics, but we can’t catch them. The campaign is extremely defensive. In the beginning, we got a few slaps in the form of lies and attacks that we had to face. But we were supposed to repel them and move on, but instead we are the whole campaign put them in an extremely defensive position, “says Jiří Knotek, a regional representative in the Zlín Region, who is running for the election from 19th place.
Knotek also believes that the party lost its pirate attack in 2017. “The campaign was memorable, offensive,” he describes. Nevertheless, he believes that the Pirates and Mayors are self-reflecting and think that a contact campaign and the upcoming election debates can save them.