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Early Elections in Slovakia: A State of Deadlock

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

Samuel Abrahám
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Extract

THE EARLY GENERAL ELECTIONS IN SLOVAKIA HELD ON 30 September–1 October 1994 and resulting in the victory of populists and nationalists caught many observers by surprise, both in and outside Slovakia. Unlike in Poland and Hungary, the leftist party in Slovakia suffered decisive setbacks, receiving 10.4 per cent of the poll instead of around 20 per cent as indicated in the pre-election surveys. The Democratic Party, the latest successors to the intellectuals who took power from the communists after November 1989, did not even receive the 5 per cent necessary to enter the National Council (see Table 1). The reaction to the overall results has been one of resignation, and pessimism about the fate of democracy in this post-communist country, which, with the Czech Republic constituted Czechoslovakia until 1993.

Type
Research Article
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1995 , pp. 86 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1995

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References

1 Rudé Právo, 1 October 1994.

2 Schutz, Peter, ‘Tretí príchod spasitel’a’ (The Third Coming of the Saviour) in Domino Efekt, Vol. 40, No. 3 7–13 10, 1994, p. 3Google Scholar.

3 For an account of the elections by Slovak social scientists see Szomolányi, S. and Mesežnikov, G. (eds), Slovakia: Padiamentary Elections 1994 - Causes - Consequences - Prospects, Bratislava, Slovak Political Science Association, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, 1994Google Scholar.

4 ZRS is a unique political movement in East Central Europe, which was allowed to emerge from political disarray and feuds on the Slovak political scene. Politicians around the ZRS leader, Ján Ľupták, who broke away from the party of the former communists, became popular for reproaching corrupt political leaders and the emerging capitalist class and by speaking out against the sell-off of state-owned property. However, their raison d’étre is to defend the workers who after the fall of communism have become unprotected and poor and have lost their human dignity in the midst of a chaotic transition. Ľupták considers that the mandate of his party is not to participate but to control the government from opposition. That makes the ZRS a very unstable coalition partner in any government.

5 See SME, 5 November 1994 and article by Ján Füle in Narodna Obroda, 7 November 1994.

6 On 11 March, Mečiar’s government resigned after a noconfidence vote in the National Council. The defectors from his HZDS tipped the balance in the legislature and eventually helped to form a broad coalition government to stay in power until the September elections. These same deputies formed the Democratic Union Party which Mečiar has tried to discredit on a spurious technicality that the list of names of DU’s supporters who nominated the DU as a party was partially falsified. Mečiar argues that because some signatures were forced, the DU did not obtain the necessary 10,000 signatures in order to be recognized as a party; thus it should not be allowed to participate in the elections and its deputies should resign or be removed from the National Council. Besides the great contempt which Mečiar has for the renegade DU deputies, is the additional fact that their removal from the National Council would give the HZDS and the SNS the absolute majority and with ZRS a 3/5 majority, the latter necessary for constitutional changes.

7 See SME, 5 November, 1994.

8 On Normalization see Šimečka, Milan, Obnovení Pořádku (The Restoration of Order), London, edice rozmluvy, 1984Google Scholar. See my essay on ‘The Break-up of Czechoslovakia: A Threat to Democratization in Slovakia?’ in Sofi a Szomolányi and Mesežnikov, Grigorij (eds), Slovak Path of Transition - to Democracy?, Bratislava, 1994Google Scholar.

9 For example, the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia in 1989–92 was Marian Čalfa, a minister before November 1989 and protégé of Gustav Husák; the Deputy Minister in Slovakia, Milan Čič, was the former Minister of Justice in Communist Slovakia. Rudolf Šuster, chairman of the Slovak National Council in 1990, was removed from office on Budaj’s insistence. But Šuster became Mayor of Košice in November 1994, while Budaj now remains in obscurity.

10 See the report by Javorsky, František, the Chairman of the Slovak National Council Investigation Committee, in Slovensky Vychod, 23 03 1992Google Scholar.

11 See the interview with Kolník, Kelement in Domino Efekt, 14–20 10, Vol. 41, No. 3, 1994Google Scholar.

12 See Volehny program HZDS: Slovensko - do toho!

13 If the student demonstration on 17 November 1994 in Bratislava was to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the ‘Velvet Revolution’ and in support of democracy and decency in politics, the demonstration on 8 December became more radical, students shouting: ‘Dos? bolo Vlada’ (We’ve had enough of Vlado - Vladimír Mečiar). See SME, 9 December 1994.