This document is an overview of the 1992 elections in the Czech and Slovak Republics. As had been expected, the pro-federalist, pro-economic reform ‘Civic Democratic Party’ won in the former region, while the leftist/nationalist ‘Movement for a Democratic Slovakia’ took power in the latter. The Commission approved of the ‘free and fair’ nature of the pre-election campaign and of the electoral procedure within the context of a proportionally representative system. However, the report highlights the disappointing lack of engagement of the media in the elections, suggesting that press laws were interpreted too narrowly and thus citizens did not benefit from good investigative journalism to inform their decisions.
The implications of the elections took each Republic in opposite political directions. Vaclav Klaus,elected as leader in the Czech Republic, supported economic reform similar to that promoted by the USA and the IMF; the Slovak leader Vladimir Merciar, on the other hand, was a rebellious electoral choice against tough economic policies eminating from Prague, expected to bring about greater state intervention and a declaration of national sovereignty. The report suggests that these opposing styles of governance would result in parliamentary gridlock and eventually contribute to the dissolution of the Czechoslavakian state. This is predicted to be of huge financial burden to both parties, but not expected to feature the same level of violence as seen during the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, as internal borders were relatively uncontested in this case.
