wh y w e l o s t
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forces to overcome their disunity in order to form pre-election alliances. The center-right
parties’ share of the vote (16% of valid votes) was almost four times smaller than the center
right’s share in 1990. The results of the parliamentary elections in 1992 were catastrophic for
the civic-right. Smaller civic parties also failed to use appropriate pre-election coalition strat-
egies, running separately and failing to enter the parliament.
2
As a result, a considerable seg-
ment of the political right, almost 10% of votes, was denied representation in parliament.
After the elections in 1992, a government of the HZDS was formed that ruled with the
“silent” and later official support from the nationalist SNS. The inability of the victorious
parties in the Czech Republic and Slovakia to resolve the question of Czechoslovakia’s
state model resulted in the division of the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (ČSFR)
and the creation of two separate, independent states. National-authoritarian and populist
forces were strengthened in Slovakia as a consequence. They used their strong positions
not only for enforcement of their preferred state model and building an independent Slo-
vak state, but also for concentrating power. In the period 1993-1994, however, the au-
thoritarian national-populist camp was weakened by the attrition processes. Groups of
moderate politicians first left HZDS and later SNS to form the centrist Democratic Union,
which declared itself a liberal party.
After the ruling coalition of HZDS and SNS lost its majority in spring 1994, the conserva-
tive KDH, liberal DU and post-Communist SDĽ, with the support of the Hungarian par-
ties, voted the nationalists from power and formed an interim coalition government that
ruled from March until September 1994. The broad left-right composition of the govern-
ment indicated that the main dividing line in Slovakia’s party systemwas not related to dif-
ferences in policy or ideology, but rather to the manner in which parties executed power.
The common ground of the KDH-DÚ-SDĽ coalition (with support from the Hungarian
parties) was resistance to authoritarianism and faithfulness to the principles of democracy
and the rule of law. This political division between democratic and authoritarian parties
grew in the coming years and greatly influenced the country’s future development.
V. Reorganization of the Center Right
in Its Fight Against Authoritarianism
A comparison of the results of the early parliamentary elections in 1994 to those of 1992
demonstrates the strong positions of non-left democratic parties, even though the overall
post-election configuration of political forces was much more favorable for the national-
authoritarian forces to create a coalition.
Three center-right formations were elected to parliament in 1994 – the KDH, the Hun-
garian Coalition (MK) and DÚ. Non-left, democratic parties which entered parliament
represented about 29% of valid votes, almost twice as much as in 1992. DS, which failed to
form a coalition with KDH, ran separately and won only 3.4% of valid votes, thus failing
to make it to parliament.
2
These were the Civic Democratic Union (ODÚ, the rumpVPN), the Democratic Party (DS) in coalitionwith the
Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and, finally, the Hungarian Civic Party (MOS).