Electoral Coalitions in the Shadow of the Pandemic: Factors of Electoral Support and Changes to Them in the Czech Parliamentary Elections in 2017 and 2021

This article maps the changes in the factors of electoral support and their importance for Czech political parties united in electoral coalitions in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies in 2017 and 2021.The analysis also includes the factor of mortality, which played a key role in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.The research is designed as a quantitative analysis of the election results in 205 municipalities with extended powers and in Prague in relation to six socioeconomic and demographic factors.The analysis found that the influence of individual factors often changes in the case of separate and joint candidacies.If a variable appears that affects individual coalition parties in different ways, it will be weakened in the coalition in the 2021 elections.The analysis also showed that the influence of the mortality factor during the COVID-19 pandemic did not have a significant effect on the electoral support for coalitions.The direction of the effect on coalition parties remained the same as in the elections four years earlier.