Next month's election in numbers

Over 5,000 candidates are going to contest for the 200 seats in the lower house of the Czech Parliament in next month's general elections, the Czech Statistics Office said on Tuesday. Out of the total, some 1,400 are women, which is just under 28 percent. Altogether, 26 political parties and groupings will be taking part in the polls but almost 40 percent of the candidates are not members of any political party. The average age is 46 years; dozens of the candidates have just reached 21 years of age, the legal minimum to be able to run for a seat. The oldest candidate is 87.