Slovak Republic

Landlocked country in central Europe, bounded north by Poland, east by the Ukraine, south by Hungary, west by Austria, and northwest by the Czech Republic.

Government

The 1992 constitution provides for a single-chamber, 150-member national assembly, the National Council of the Slovak Republic, elected by universal suffrage for a four-year term. The president, who is head of state, is elected by the National Council for a maximum of two consecutive five-year terms and appoints the prime minister, who in turn appoints a cabinet or council of ministers. The president may be removed from office if the assembly passes a no-confidence resolution with a 60% majority. The country is divided for administrative purposes into eight regions, which are subdivided into municipalities.

History

Slovakia was under Habsburg rule 1906–18, when it gained independence and chose to unite with the Czech lands as the sovereign state of Czechoslovakia. Prior to World War II there was a growth in Slovak nationalism, partly in reaction to the Nazi threat, but this was less marked after the communists took power in 1948. In November 1989 there were pro-democracy demonstrations in Prague and the Slovak capital, Bratislava. The Communist Party was disbanded, a new ‘coalition government’ formed with Václav Havel as president, and political parties legalized, including the Slovak-based People against Violence (PAV). This smooth and largely peaceful transition to democracy was later termed the ‘velvet revolution’.

Independence

The next two years saw a revival of Slovak separatism, and in 1991 Slovak premier Vladimir Meciar was dismissed from his post after forming a PAV splinter group, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (MDS), pledged to greater autonomy from Prague. Jan Carnogursky, leader of the junior partner in the PAV-led coalition, the Christian Democratic Union, took over as premier, and in October 1991 the PAV was renamed the Civic Democratic Union (CDU). Meciar's dismissal had provoked protest demonstrations in Bratislava, and in the June 1992 assembly elections the MDS emerged as the largest group in the Czechoslovak federal assembly. President Havel resigned and, after failure to agree a federal style of government, creation of a separate Slovak state was agreed. In January 1993 the Slovak Republic came into being, with Meciar as prime minister. A treaty of good neighbourliness was signed with the Czech Republic, concluding what inevitably became known as the ‘velvet divorce’. A new constitution had been adopted in 1992 and in February 1993 ex-communist Michal Kovac was elected president. In June 1993 the new republic was admitted to the United Nations and the Council of Europe, and formally invited to apply for European Community (now European Union) membership. In January 1994 it joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's ‘partnership for peace’ programme.

Prime Minister Meciar was ousted on a vote of no-confidence in March 1994 and replaced by Jozef Moravcik, heading a non-MDS coalition committed to privatization and economic reform. In the October 1994 elections the MDS won most assembly seats, although not an overall majority, and Meciar was returned to power. In September 1995 President Kovac's son was mysteriously kidnapped and beaten up. It was alleged that the attack was part of a campaign of intimidation by supporters of Prime Minister Meciar, who for months had sought to remove President Kovac from office. In response to the allegations, the EU and USA warned Meciar that the republic would not be considered for EU membership unless he and his supporters stopped harassing the opposition and the president. A controversial language law was approved in November 1995, making Slovak the only official language and restricting the public use of others. In March 1996 the Slovak Republic signed a friendship treaty with Hungary.

Presidency vacant

President Kovac's term expired in March 1998, and attempts to elect a successor during January and March failed since the candidates were unable to secure the necessary three-fifths majority in the National Council. This deadlock was caused by Prime Minister Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia failing to put forward a candidate and abstaining with the intention of creating a constitutional vacuum to augment Meciar's authority. It enabled Meciar to take over the president's powers in March with the intention of implementing changes to electoral rules that would improve his party's prospects in the September 1998 general election. He immediately used these new powers to sack 33 of the country's 42 ambassadors and to cancel a planned referendum on whether a new president should be directly elected. In August 1998 the National Council Chair, Ivan Gasparovicacute, took over as acting head of state.

Coalition government in power

In September 1998 Meciar stepped down as prime minister, after his ruling coalition lost its parliamentary majority in the general election. His MDS won only 43 of the 150 National Council seats and the ZRS no seats (against 13 in 1994), while the opposition Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDC) alliance won 42 seats. A new four-party coalition government was formed, involving the SDC, PDL, and Hungarian Coalition. In October 1998 the Christian Democrat, Mikulas Dzurinda, leader of the SDC, became prime minister, heading a new left-right coalition government with the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), the Party of the Hungarian Coalition (SMK) and the Party of Civic Understanding (SOP). The new government, keen to improve inter-ethnic relations, appointed an ethnic Hungarian to a new post of minister for minorities and human rights. However, the partners in the coalition, which comprised four political blocks and ten parties, disagreed over the method of electing a new state president.

In June 1999 Rudolf Schuster, the candidate of the Slovakia's reform-minded right, beat Vladimir Meciar in a run-off in the country's first direct presidential elections. In October the government approved a plan for accession to NATO, possibly to occur in 2001, while in December 1999, the EU invited the Slovak Republic to start negotiating for membership in February 2000.

Having failed to unite his 1998 coalition government into a single unit, Prime Minister Dzurinda announced plans in January 2000 to form a new Slovenská Demokratická Koalícia (SDK; Slovak Democratic Coalition), within a new left-right coalition including the Democratic Union party, the Democratic Party, the Christian Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party, and the Green Party. Dzurinda became leader of the new party in November.

In April 2000, the death penalty was abolished in the Slovak Republic, bringing the human rights system in line with that of Europe. In the same month Vladimir Meciar was arrested on charges of corruption. In December, a referendum on holding an early general election, pressed for by Meciar, failed to attract public support.

The Slovak Republic became a member of the EU on 1 May 2004, with a 2003 referendum finding 92% of the population to be in favour of accession.