The 2021 elections to the Czech Chamber of Deputies against the background of the quality of life

In early October 2021, 4 years after the previous national parliamentary elections, the Czech electorate once again went to the polls, with the aim of transforming the make-up of the lower chamber of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In terms of the offer to voters, after a long time – and arguably for the first time – political parties made the strategic move of presenting electoral coalitions for election. The opposition parties sitting in the Chamber in the previous term joined one of two large blocs, of which the first, SPOLU, was dominated by the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and complemented by two smaller liberal-conservative parties, Tradition, Responsibility, Prosperity (TOP 09), and the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People’s Party (KDU-ČSL). The second bloc consisted of the Czech Pirate Party (the Pirates), which entered parliament in 2017 and formed an electoral collaboration with the smallest party on the parliamentary benches, Mayors and Independents (STAN). Also on offer to the electorate were the government parties: Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s marketing-oriented, populist ANO 2011, and his junior coalition partner, the Czech Social Democratic Party (ČSSD). There was also the Communist Party, which could rely on its near-century-long parliamentary tradition, and the far-right Freedom and Direct Democracy (SPD), which through the figure of its leader, had been represented in the Chamber since 2013. With these and a group of marginal parties, voters could choose from more than 20 candidate lists. In addition to this set-up of electoral coalitions and political parties, the 2021 elections were notable for taking place after nearly a year and a half of restrictions introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with shuttered or limited cultural and social events and everyday life – something that people could not even imagine before spring 2020.

The aim of the present article is to analyse the parties’ electoral results in relation to a regularly updated “quality-of-life” index provided by Obce v datech, a private company, that captures the varying living standards in 206⁽¹⁾ administrative units called municipalities with extended powers (obce s rozšířenou působností, ORPs). The multi-layered dataset measures the availability of housing and education, environmental quality, employment opportunities, transport accessibility, and some 30 other indicators, divided into three categories: Health and environment; Work, education, and standard of living; and Community and services.

As noted by the Czech Geographical Society (CGS), the index has numerous limitations. First, its values are influenced by the location of the given town or city within the Czech Republic (areas around Ústí nad Labem and Ostrava, as well as border areas, are particularly disadvantaged). It also matters whether the municipality is a regional capital or a town lying close to the major city of the region. Further, there are differences between the boroughs in any given city.

Second, although it is called a “quality-of-life” index, what it really provides is “statistically processed results of the aggregated values of indices” that have been selected as indicative of the quality of life.⁽²⁾ As noted by CGS, “the differences in the ranking of towns of the same type (small towns in stabilised areas,⁽³⁾ towns in structurally disadvantaged regions,⁽⁴⁾ towns close to the metropolis) are entirely negligible.” The actual quality of life in a town cannot be inferred from its index ranking. CGS also notes that not all aspects of the quality of life can be measured objectively using statistical indicators:

The quality of life cannot be defined merely by the availability of services, schools, social and healthcare facilities and other aspects typical of larger towns, and it is increasingly true that some services may be substituted for by others that are not captured by the statistics. The quality of life is not measured solely by a set of more or less well-elaborated data, but also by assessing people’s satisfaction, identification and shared responsibility for the places where they live and work. (CGS 2023)

These are the limitations we bear in mind when using the Obce v datech quality-of-life index, also being mindful of the contents and selection of the indicators that together constitute the index. Quality of life can be viewed subjectively (personal perception and well-being) and objectively (the physical aspects, covering the quality of the place) (Murgaš, Petrovič 2020; Phillips 2006; Bowling, Windsor 2001). Given the uncertainty around which aspects should be included when measuring quality of life, many authors have created their own indices (Rinner 2007; Mizgajski, Walaszek, Kaczmarek 2014; Peach, Petach 2015; Weziak-Białowolska 2016; Bougouffa, Permana 2018; Kazemzadeh-Zow et al. 2018; Murgaš, Petrovič 2020), some of which attempt a subjective, others an objective assessment.

The use of quality-of-life indices is not new. The index produced by Obce v datech has been used in electoral studies in the past to examine the effect of the quality of life on voter turnout (Haman, Školník 2020) or on the representation of women (Maškarinec 2020c).

The economic development of a constituency and its social composition by voter characteristics such as education, employment, and age have a fundamental influence on the electoral success of different parties standing there, as studies from abroad show (e.g. Bolise, Chironi, Pianta 2021; Lysek, Zvada, Škop 2020; Madleňák 2012; Marandici 2022; Sichinava 2017; Voda, Pink 2015; Zarycki 2015). In the past, economically strong regions of Czechia have supported parties of the right, while poorer regions – with higher unemployment, fewer highly educated, more over-65s, more debt enforcement actions, lower religiosity, more crime, higher divorce rates, poor transport accessibility, and more young people moving away to larger cities – have returned those of the left (Bernard, Šimon 2014; Kostelecký et al. 2015; Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021). Such areas are to be found in the Sudetenland (Appendix 1) and on the Czech borders (Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021).

Until the electoral earthquakes in 2010, 2013, and 2017, the Czech party system was characterised by traditional links between political parties and various social groups, positioned on the left-to-right axis (Deegan-Krause, Haughton 2010; Kostelecký et al. 2015; Smith, Matějů 2011; Linek, Lyons 2013). After 1990, one of the four fundamental cleavages, the socio-economic cleavage (Lipset, Rokkan 1967), emerged as the most important (Deegan-Krause, Haughton 2010; Hloušek, Kopeček 2008; Vlachová, Matějů 1998). ODS was supported by voters with higher socioeconomic status (proprietors, white-collar workers, higher-income groups with better education (Maškarinec 2019; Voda, Pink 2015)), while ČSSD, by contrast, drew its support from socially disadvantaged groups (including the unemployed and those without university education (Maškarinec 2019; Voda, Pink 2015)). Core KSČM voters were manual workers and an ageing demographic (Linek, Lyons 2013), which, according to Linek (2008), was the party’s main problem that subsequently caused its exit from the Chamber of Deputies. Similarly, KSČM tended to be more successful in smaller municipalities with fewer Catholics, fewer people with university education, a high unemployment rate and lower purchasing power (Maškarinec 2019; Voda, Pink 2015). KDU-ČSL had most supporters among Catholics (Kouba 2007; Linek, Lyons 2013) and in smaller municipalities with low unemployment rates (Voda, Pink 2015).

Since 2010, however, support for established Czech parties has been weakened by new challengers, the populist parties VV and ANO, the far-right Dawn and SPD, and the Pirates and liberal conservatives (TOP 09 and STAN). Before these elections, which have been called “electoral earthquakes” by scholars, it was possible unequivocally to define the areas in which individual parties dominated. KDU-ČSL had significant electoral support in south-east Moravia and Vysočina (Kostelecký 2009; Navrátil 2010; Pink, Voda 2012; Voda 2011), going back to the era of the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938), and it managed to maintain it into the 2020s, even though the role of the church in society diminished over that period (Šimon 2015). Poorer regions such as Ústí nad Labem and Moravia-Silesia favoured ČSSD (Kostelecký 2009; Kyloušek, Pink 2009; Maškarinec 2017; Navrátil 2010; Pink, Voda 2012) and KSČM (Navrátil 2010, Kostelecký 2009; Maškarinec 2017; Pink, Voda 2012), with KSČM also polling better in the borderlands (Kouba 2007; Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021; Maškarinec 2017; Voda, Pink 2015). Central Bohemia, north-east Bohemia, and the larger cities led by Prague elected ODS (Maškarinec 2017; Navrátil 2010, Kostelecký 2009; Pink, Voda 2012). Smaller right-wing parties, such as ODA, US-DEU, and the Green Party, enjoyed the greatest support in Bohemia and the larger cities in Moravia, while the radical-right SPR-RSČ did well in north Bohemia (Maškarinec 2017).

New parties disrupted the existing position of the socio-economic, left vs. right division as the main, structural cleavage of the Czech party-political spectrum (Maškarinec 2017, 2020a). The hitherto stable patterns of electoral support changed too, with populist parties winning the favour of dissatisfied voters, such as VV to a limited extent in 2010, and ANO in 2013, when many voters transferred from ODS (Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021; Maškarinec 2019) and in 2017 from ČSSD and KSČM (Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021; Maškarinec, Novotny 2020; Voda 2019). Likewise, SPD won over unhappy ČSSD and KSČM voters characterised by lower social status, whether expressed in terms of income or education. Specifically, and similarly to ČSSD, KSČM, and ANO, SPD was most successful in Moravia and Silesia, except in the large cities (Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021; Maškarinec 2019; Voda 2019). Typically, SPD won the most votes in municipalities where foreclosures and migration were more prevalent, and conversely received less support in areas with a higher share of university-educated and religious people (Suchánek, Hasman 2022).

Since 2010, the liberal-conservative parties, most importantly TOP 09, polled better in large cities, and best in Prague. STAN did well in areas that traditionally voted for centre and right-wing parties (except KDU-ČSL) and fared worst in areas that showed strong support for the left, the far right and ANO. Compared to classic liberal-conservative parties, STAN was characterised by its weak position in large cities, and, contrariwise, strong support in small municipalities (which is due to the fact that the main members were mayors), and this differentiates it from TOP 09 (Maškarinec 2020b) and the Pirates, the latter party having a similar electoral base to TOP 09 and ODS, i.e. in Bohemia and large cities⁽⁵⁾ (Maškarinec 2017; Voda 2019). The Pirates were successful mainly among younger voters, whereas the negative influence on support for the Pirates only existed among voters older than 65 (Maškarinec 2020a; Dostálová, Havlík 2019). The Pirates were also successful in larger municipalities, which fits with the long-term patterns of support for right-wing parties in the Czech Republic (Kostelecký et al. 2015; Maškarinec 2020a), and in municipalities with higher education and lower unemployment. On the other hand, the Pirates had less support in municipalities with a higher proportion of Catholics (Maškarinec 2020a). In summary, it can be concluded that the Pirates had more support in more developed areas (Kostelecký et al. 2015; Maškarinec 2020a). STAN mostly drew on its strong position in local politics. From the above, we propose the following hypotheses: (1)

Right-wing parties will perform better electorally in ORPs with a higher quality of life.

We analysed aggregated data at the ORP level; it is therefore not possible to draw conclusions about the behaviour of individual voters. We investigated whether the quality of life in ORPs had an effect on the electoral performance of political parties and coalitions that crossed the 5% threshold in the 2021 parliamentary elections and therefore won seats. We took election data from the website volby.cz and quality-of-life data from the website obcevdatech.cz. There are 206 ORPs in the Czech Republic, and the website assesses quality of life on a scale from 0 (worst) to 10 (best), based on 29 indices divided into three categories. Each category encompasses the number of services, commodities, etc., available in relation to the number of inhabitants and the driving distance to access them, or their quality (obcevdatech.cz). The first category, Health and environment, covers the availability of general practitioners, paediatricians, and pharmacies, the driving time to a hospital, life expectancy, air pollution, presence of polluters, and protected natural areas. The second category, Work, education, and standard of living, includes unemployment rate, job offers at job portals and the Labour Office, housing affordability, the number of needy people receiving welfare benefits, the number of debt enforcement actions, the capacity of kindergartens and primary schools, and the quality of secondary schools. The third category, Community and services, covers the availability of supermarkets, ATMs, restaurants and cinemas, assessments of the road network, public transport by rail, citizen engagement in societies and associations, participation in local and regional elections, traffic accidents, gambling, young people’s migration, and population change. The categories are weighted, and each accounts for a third of the resulting quality-of-life index in the municipality. In Model 1, we consider the effects of the overall quality-of-life index on the electoral performance of political parties (ANO, SPD, ČSSD, and KSČM) and coalitions (SPOLU and Pirates + STAN). Our analysis used linear regression; the dependent variable is the election results of the parties/coalitions in ORPs.

For Model 2, our approach was the same as Model 1 except that we added control variables to the regression model to determine the strength of the effect of quality of life on the electoral performance of political parties and coalitions. We did not include any of the commonly used variables (see above) in the regression model, as they were already included in the quality-of-life index (average age, foreclosure, and unemployment) or those that showed a higher correlation with the quality-of-life index (proportion of self-employed people). Conversely, variables such as the proportion of Catholics, nationals from outside Europe and people over 65 years, and the population size (logarithmically adjusted) were added to the analysis.

In what follows, we present the results of the regression analysis of the models as described above. The maps provide a visual representation of the spatial nonstationarity of analysed relationships. The full results of Model 2 that considered the overall quality-of-life index with control variables are given in Tables A1–A5.

4.1

ANO

Styled by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš as a “movement,” the main party of government, ANO, in this election was defending the 8 years it spent in power. Previously, in 2013–2017, together with KDU-ČSL, it had been a junior partner to the Social Democrats in a coalition government. After winning the election in autumn 2017, taking nearly 30% of the vote, ANO first attempted to win support for a single-party, minority government, but in mid-2018 it created a coalition with the Social Democrats and won confidence thanks to a confidence-and-supply agreement with KSČM. Since 2017, ANO has controlled the prime ministerial post and other key government portfolios, most importantly the Ministry of Finance. Like the other parties, it entered the election after a long period of restrictions caused by the pandemic measures; the economic situation was not bad, with the unemployment rate in particular long showing very low values. Figure 1 shows clearly the descending trend of the regression line, demonstrating how, with increasing quality of life, depicted by the index we selected, electoral support for ANO decreased. In areas where the index was low, the candidate list of the government party sometimes won more than 40% of the vote, whereas, with increasing quality of life, support for ANO decreased to under 20%, its lowest values. Figure 2 shows regression residuals that localise the specificities of the positive and negative deviations in support for ANO. The highest positive values were achieved in a number of ORPs that could be described as frontier or peripheral areas. There are many of these in north-west and west Bohemia, close to the border with Germany, as well as in the south near the Austrian border. In the east, we tend to find islands of positive deviations in smaller ORPs such as Otrokovice. These findings support those of Maškarinec, Novotny (2020), who showed that ANO won most votes in areas with dissatisfied voters of right-wing parties (mostly ODS) in 2013 and left-wing parties (ČSSD and KSČM) in 2017. ANO’s best results in the north-west, west, and east parts of the Czech Republic show that the party continues to appeal chiefly to former ČSSD and KSČM voters.

Figure 1

Regression residual values – ANO 2011.

Figure 2

Regression residual values in the map – ANO 2011.

The strength of the effect of the quality of life on the electoral performance of political parties and coalitions was not different in Model 2, and the conclusions from Model 1 remain valid. ANO won 36,803 votes in ORPs with the lowest quality of life and share of people over 65 years, Catholics and non-EU nationals, and the number of inhabitants. As quality of life increases, the electoral performance of ANO decreases significantly. As described above, ANO was more successful in ORPs characterised by a higher proportion of the over-65s, and received less support in more populous ORPs. As some ORPs in the Sudetenland (e.g. Aš, Kadaň, Kaplice, Tachov, Ostrov, and Česká Lípa) had larger populations of non-EU nationals, it was confirmed that this variable was essential to ANO for growing electoral support. This can be linked with ANO’s growing criticism of the European Union and its opposition to immigration in the campaign for the 2021 election. Interestingly, ORPs such as Domažlice, Český Krumlov, and Třeboň were characterised by a high proportion of both Catholics and non-EU nationals; Třeboň, furthermore, is an area with a higher quality of life, yet also with a greater proportion of the over-65s. In these ORPs, ANO and the SPOLU coalition achieved similar electoral performances.

4.2

SPOLU

A candidate list of three opposition parties (KDU-ČSL, ODS, and TOP 09), SPOLU was the actual winner of the closely fought electoral contest. The trio of centre-right and liberal-conservative parties achieved a compromise, and even though it won only the second most seats for its top vote share, it formed the government, and the ODS chair became prime minister. Figure 3 shows a clear trend which is exactly the opposite of that of ANO. In ORPs with the lowest quality of life, indicated by a quality-of-life index of two or less, SPOLU won only slightly more than 10% of the vote; as quality of life in ORPs increased, so did the electorate’s favour. The highest values of the index (above eight) suggest electoral results that exceed the 40% of the vote threshold. Figure 4 also shows a trend of voter distribution that is the inverse of ANOs.

Figure 3

Regression residual values – SPOLU.

Figure 4

Regression residual values in the map – SPOLU.

SPOLU’s strongest support was in a number of ORPs around the two most populous cities, Prague and Brno, in the interior of the country where there are no structural problems, and in the east, which has long been KDU-ČSL’s electoral stronghold (Kostelecký 2009; Maškarinec 2017; Navrátil 2010; Pink, Voda 2012; Voda 2011). Thus, the alliance of the three parties with similar electoral bases was able to maximise its electoral results in the areas that typically favour the parties involved, whether that was Prague and the Pilsen region (TOP 09 and ODS) or south-eastern Moravia and Vysočina (KDU-ČSL). By contrast, the coalition polled worst in the economically weaker borderlands.

The strength of the effect of quality of life, as measured by the index, was not different in Model 2, and the conclusions from Model 1 remain valid. The SPOLU coalition won 14,457 votes in ORPs with the lowest quality of life, proportion of people over 65 years, Catholics and non-EU nationals, and the number of inhabitants. As the quality of life, share of Catholics, or population increase, the electoral performance of SPOLU also increases significantly. Right-wing parties have traditionally performed better in the more populous municipalities, and Catholics are the core KDU-ČSL voters. By contrast, in Sudetenland ORPs such as Aš, Kadaň, Kaplice, Tachov, Ostrov, and Česká Lípa, associated with a higher share of non-EU nationals, the SPOLU coalition performed worse in the election. However, where the ORPs had greater shares of non-EU nationals, but these were the large metropolises (Brno and Prague) featuring a higher quality of life, the SPOLU coalition scored well. Similarly, it performed well in Černošice, which had a large population of non-EU nationals, but also one of the lowest shares of the over-65s, and scored highly on the quality-of-life index.

4.3

Pirates and STAN

The second electoral coalition in the 2021 parliamentary elections was an alliance of two “new” parties: STAN, a group of local politicians, and the Pirates, a liberal-leaning party. Both parties had sat in the Chamber in the 2017–2021 term, the Pirates with 22 MPs and STAN relying on the smallest parliamentary group – six MPs. Unlike the Pirates, who entered the lower chamber in 2017 as a completely new political party with no prior experience, STAN had previously sat on the parliamentary benches thanks to sharing a joint candidate list with a more liberally oriented party, TOP 09. In 2010–2013 a STAN nominee became minister of culture. We see in Figure 5 a similar trend to that previously seen with SPOLU: as the values of the index increased, so did voters’ favour for the Pirates and STAN. Where the index values were the lowest, Pirates/STAN polled about 10% of the vote; elsewhere they did better and in areas with a higher quality of life the candidate list polled above 20%. The best result – above 25% – was recorded in Semily, an ORP where the quality-of-life index only reached a middling value. The variance of electoral support from the regression line is depicted in Figure 6, showing clusters of above-average support in Bohemia, especially around Prague and the city’s greater metropolitan area, in particular the Central Bohemia region. Another very interesting area for the Pirates/STAN coalition is the north and north-east, in the Liberec and Hradec Králové regions. By contrast, the residuals exhibit average or below-average values in Moravia, outside large cities and in the border regions of western Bohemia.

Figure 5

Regression residual values – Pirates/STAN.

Figure 6

Regression residual values in the map – Pirates/STAN.

The strength between the quality-of-life index and the electoral performance of political parties and coalitions was not different in Model 2, and the conclusions from Model 1 remain valid. The Pirates/STAN coalition won 10,527 votes in ORPs with the lowest quality of life, the proportion of people over 65 years, Catholics and non-EU nationals, and the number of inhabitants. As the quality-of-life index increases, the electoral performance of the coalition also increases significantly. In contrast, with an increasing proportion of Catholics, the electoral gains of the coalition decrease. This may be related to the stronger position of the SPOLU coalition in ORPs with a higher proportion of Catholics, or that STAN is more successful in smaller municipalities, which are not part of this study, and Pirates, in contrast, in larger cities, where the proportion of Catholics is smaller.

4.4

SPD

Freedom and Direct Democracy, the main representative of the protest voter, a party based on populism and described by experts as far right, was able to defend its position in the 2021 elections. Polling nearly 10% of the vote, it returned 20 MPs, of whom more than half had parliamentary experience from the previous term (11, including Jaroslav Foldyna, had been elected for ČSSD in 2017). We see from Figure 7 the same trend we have described for ANO. As the quality-of-life index falls, support increases for the far-right SPD. In ORPs with very low index values, SPD polled above 15%, its top result being slightly over 17%. In places where the index had medium values, support for SPD was only 10–12%, and where the index was highest, support for the party dropped to close to 5%. These findings are in line with previous research, which has noted support for SPD in deprived areas with a population of lower social status voters, whether in terms of income or education (Figure 8) (Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021; Maškarinec 2019; Voda 2019).

Figure 7

Regression residual values – SPD.

Figure 8

Regression residual values in the map – SPD.

The strength of the effect of the quality of life on the electoral performance of political parties and coalitions was not different in Model 2, and the conclusions from Model 1 remain valid. The SPD won 17,247 votes in ORPs with the lowest quality of life, proportion of people over 65 years, Catholics and non-EU nationals, and the number of inhabitants. The areas with a lower social status (e.g. Aš, Kadaň, Kaplice, Tachov, Ostrov, and Česká Lípa) are associated with larger populations of non-EU nationals, so SPD’s results are perhaps predictable from their anti-immigration electoral campaign.

When using the quality-of-life index, we bore in mind how the index was constructed, and how it depicted the quality of life in light of the selected indicators. For instance, we may have expected that the border regions of the Sudetenland would exhibit a lower quality of life and that ORPs in areas with similar values of the input indicators would show a similar quality of life. In the past, some authors used their own quality-of-life indices (Rinner 2007; Mizgajski, Walaszek, Kaczmarek 2014; Peach, Petach 2015; Weziak-Białowolska 2016; Bougouffa, Permana 2018; Kazemzadeh-Zow et al. 2018; Murgaš, Petrovič 2020); the index produced by Obce v datech, which is used here, has been used in several studies (Haman, Školník 2020; Maškarinec 2020c). Our study, therefore, contributes to the established direction of research that employs quality-of-life indices, and does so with respect to the elections to the Chamber of Deputies. Specifically, we examined whether higher values of the quality-of-life index were associated with greater electoral support for right-wing parties, and conversely, whether the far-right SPD and the populist ANO were more successful in ORPs with a lower quality of life.

The coalition’s SPOLU, and Pirates and STAN, were more successful in ORPs characterised by a higher quality of life: these are often regional capitals or areas around Prague and Brno. By contrast, the Sudetenland and other socially weaker regions were associated with a lower quality of life and greater electoral support for the SPD and ANO. It was also confirmed that the right-wing parties were more successful in the more populous ORPs and those featuring a lower proportion of the over-65s. Similarly, the SPOLU coalition was more successful in the more Catholic areas, which can be described as KDU-ČSL electoral strongholds: Vysočina and South Moravia. The proportion of non-EU nationals in an ORP proved to be an important factor for ANO and SPD; often, these ORPs were in the Sudetenland in the west of the country. Our findings underline the conclusions of many other authors (Dostálová, Havlík 2019; Kostelecký et al. 2015; Lysek, Pánek, Lebeda 2021; Maškarinec 2017, 2020a, b; Voda 2019). Based on the above, all five hypotheses are deemed valid. However, there were also ORPs (such as Domažlice, Český Krumlov, and Třeboň) which scored highly across the variables observed, corresponding to a balanced electoral performance of the SPOLU coalition and ANO, the two strongest political groups in the 2021 election.

The Quality of Life Index confirmed many of the claims we made in the historical overview “Voting Behaviour and Geography in the Czech Republic.” For example, economically strong ORPs, where right-wing parties have historically thrived, are also characterised by a higher quality of life, which illustrates the success of coalition SPOLU. Even assuming that there may be places in certain areas characterised by a low quality of life. Similarly, the success of ANO and SPD in ORPs with a lower quality of life, falling in areas of economically weaker regions, has been demonstrated. The quality of life index can be used as a supporting factor that can provide a basic understanding of electoral support in the Czech Republic. If it is supplemented with other predictors, as in our study, it can be used as a supporting factor defining the specificity of individual ORP (e.g. Domažlice, Český Krumlov, and Třeboň). On the other hand, it should be noted that studies focusing on one issue always provide a more comprehensive and detailed view, which cannot be Quality-of-Life Index can achieve. Further research could also focus in more detail on the ORPs we have mentioned, where ANO and SPOLU received a similar number of votes. Alternatively, replicate our research on the results in the 2025 Chamber of Deputies elections, which could confirm or refute our findings.

This publication was written at Masaryk University with the support of the Specific University Research Grant provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.

All authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this manuscript and consented to its submission to the journal, reviewed all theresults and approved the final version of the manuscript. Petr Dvořák analysed the data and performed linear regressions, as well as Petr Dvořák wrote the theoretical section, methodological section, introduction, summary, and the section "Distribution of Electoral Support for Parties". Petr Dvořák also obtained data on the characteristics of ORP. Michal Pink created all the maps and contributed to the section "Distribution of Electoral Support for Parties", the introduction, and the summary. Michal Pink also obtained data on the quality of life.

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.