121
C e n t e r - R i gh t Pa rt i e s i n S l o va k i a…
Since 1990, there have been several political parties in Slovakia that define themselves
as liberal, conservative or Christian-democratic. Some of them have disappeared, while
others have united with parties of a similar ideology. Several parties exist today as inde-
pendent formations:
• The
Christian Democratic Movement
(KDH), in existence since 1990, has established
itself as a conservative, Christian political force.
• The
Slovak Democratic and Christian Union
(SDKÚ) was founded in 2000 with a
merger of the liberal Democratic Union (DÚ) with one of the factions of the Christian
Democratic Movement.
• The
Party of the Hungarian Coalition
(SMK), founded in 1998, is comprised of three
political parties representing the interests of the Hungarian ethnic minority in Slovakia
– the Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement (MKDH), the liberal-conservative
movement “Co-existence,” and the liberal Hungarian Civic Party (MOS).
• The
Alliance of the New Citizen
(ANO) was established in 2001 as a political party with
a liberal orientation.
• The
Democratic Party
(DS), a civic-right party, is the successor of the historical DS
which was founded in 1944 during the anti-fascist Slovak National Uprising. In the
years 1993-1994, some small political parties of similar orientation united with the DS,
including the Conservative Democratic Party, the Party of Conservative Democrats,
and the Civic Democratic Party in Slovakia.
Since the first free elections after the fall of the Communist regime in 1990, center-right
political formations in Slovakia have maintained strong positions in the system of execu-
tive power longer than any other political force. They have greatly influenced the country’s
development during the last 10 years. During the other six years, the country was gov-
erned by national-populist parties with unclear ideological and programmatic profiles
and an authoritarian style of government.
In the years 1990-1992, center-right parties were members of the government that created
the political and legislative basis for systemic changes in society, specifically the broad civ-
ic, liberal-democratic movement Public Against Violence (VPN) which gradually trans-
formed into the civic-right Civic Democratic Union (ODÚ), the conservative KDH and
civic-right DS. Between March and September 1994, center-right parties (the conservative
KDH and liberal DÚ), the post-Communist Party of the Democratic Left (SDĽ) and the
Hungarian parties made up the provisional government.
In the years 1998 – 2002, the Slovak Democratic Coalition (SDK), dominated by center-
right parties (KDH, DÚ, and DS), was the strongest member of the broad democratic
coalition. It ruled together with the conservative SMK and two left-of-center parties – the
SDĽ and the Party of Civic Understanding (SOP). After the parliamentary elections in
2002, a programmatically homogeneous government was created consisting of three con-
servative parties (SDKÚ, KDH and SMK) and one liberal party (ANO).
In Slovakia, in contrast to other Central and Eastern Europe countries, center-right parties
have not competed against the post-Communist left, but rather against other political forces.
They have also been quite successful in their efforts. This fact can be adequately explained
