Meciar, Vladimír (1942– )

Slovak politician, prime minister of the Slovak Republic 1993–1998 (with a break March–October 1994). A former Communist Party dissident, he joined the Public Against Violence (PAV) movement in 1989, campaigning for a free Czechoslovakia; then, as leader of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) from 1990, he sought an independent Slovak state. Under the federal system, Meciar was prime minister of the Slovak Republic 1990–91. He was the new Slovak state's first prime minister from 1993, but his leadership was seen as autocratic and in 1999 he was defeated by Rudolf Schuster in the country's first direct presidential elections. Meciar was also defeated in the April 2004 run-off presidential elections.

With his Czech counterparts, Meciar helped ensure that the ‘velvet revolution’ of 1989 was translated into a similarly bloodless ‘velvet divorce’ between the Czech and Slovak republics. A hardline nationalist populist, as prime minister he halted voucher privatization and sought to curb the growing influence of the republic's ethnic-Hungarian minority, clashing with President Kovac in the process. He resigned as premier of the Slovak Republic in March 1994, after a dispute with President Kovac over Meciar's handling of the privatization programme, but he returned to power after the October 1994 elections.

Born at Zvolen, Meciar was educated at the Komenský University, Bratislava. He held a number of posts under the Czechoslovak communist regime until, as a dissident, he was expelled from the party in 1970.