Final Word from Thursday, October 7, 2021
The real battle in the Czech parliamentary elections might very well be between the Pirates and SPD. Everyone expects ANO to win the elections, with the Spolu/Together coalition coming in second, so the main question on that level is whether the spread between them is narrow or wide. More important is third place. Mathematically, it will be impossible for the two anti-Babiš groups to form a majority super coalition if the Pirates/STAN coalition doesn't beat SPD. Václav Nekvapil of CEC Group said during a debate at the American Chamber of Commerce in late-Aug. that he expects some PirStan voters to leave for Spolu, and SPD to take away part of the ANO and Přísaha/Oath electorate, casting SPD into third. Even if PirStan does hold on to third place, it will still be extremely important whether the Pirates win more seats alone as a party than SPD does. In Kantar CZ's poll for Czech TV of individual parties (as opposed to coalitions), the Pirates' lead over SPD dropped steadily from 11.5 percentage points in Feb. to 2.5 points in Aug. Without explanation, Kantar then abruptly stopped breaking out the individual numbers. [ Czech Republic ODS TOP 09 KDU-ČSL Oct. Television Andrej ]
Glossary of difficult words
Correction: The spread between the Pirates and SPD in Feb. was 11.5 percentaage points, as corrected above, not 12.5 points, as we originally wrote.
spread - the difference between two rates or prices;
to break out - to give individual figures or calculations for a subset of numbers.