The Social Democrats and their centre-right Civic Democratic rivals each received 20 per cent of the vote in this weekend's election, an exit poll for Czech Television said Saturday, dpa reported. Voters appeared to have punished the two biggest political parties, with new parties showing substantial gains, the poll by SC&C showed. Such a result would be a particular blow for the Social Democrats, who were expected to win the race, polling around 30 per cent in pre- election opinion polls. TOP 09, a new, conservative, free-market party led by popular aristocrat Karel Schwarzenberg, gained 17 per cent of the vote, while Public Matters, a populist protest party, received 11 per cent, the survey said. The unreformed Communists gained 11 per cent, suggesting a defeat for the country's leftist parties. The Christian Democrats would enter parliament with 5 per cent. Some 23,000 voters participated in the exit poll, whose margin of error is 2 per cent, the pollster said.
