wh y w e l o s t
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• high voter mobilization (election turnout exceeded 84%);
• effective approaches in targeting pro-democracy-oriented voters;
• strong positions of center-right parties within civil society and participation of these
parties in broader democratic alliances (together with NGOs, think tanks, independent
media, influential groups of intellectuals, representatives of churches, etc);
• perception of center-right parties by the population as the primary defenders of de-
mocracy during the governance of the authoritarian national-populist parties; and
• the significant pro-integration orientation of Slovakia’s citizens, who perceived SDK as
a force which was able to remove obstacles for Slovakia’s participation in the process of
EU and NATO enlargement erected by Mečiar’s government.
The solid results of the SDK and SMK helped to create a broad democratic coalition (with
four constituent parties – the SDK, SMK, SDĽ and SOP)
3
which stabilized internal political
developments, erased the authoritarian rules enacted by Mečiar’s government and began
to carry out important reforms in the constitutional system and in some socio-economic
sectors. Within the broad coalition, the center-right parties had a stronger position than
the left. Although the relations among center-right parties themselves from 1999–2000
were marked by numerous conflicts on the policy level, especially in carrying out reforms,
these parties succeeded in preserving a sufficient degree of unity and cohesion in order to
implement the government’s liberal economic program.
The center-right parties’ solid policy platform helped them defeat the authoritarian HZDS
and to consolidate their own positions in the coalition and later defeat their former coali-
tion partners on the left. SDK presented a lengthy set of policy papers which were pre-
pared by experts representing particular constituent (“mother”) parties of the SDK (KDH,
DÚ and DS), as well as experts from academia and some independent think tanks. SDK
also offered the public not only political, but real policy alternatives. After the 1998 elec-
tions, many key points of this document became the basis of the programs of the first
cabinet of Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda. In those areas in which government tried to
carry out reform, the center-right parties cooperated with independent, analytical think
tanks and used their expertise as a basis for reform strategies. In some areas (economy,
social policy and foreign policy), this included not only the utilization of expert analysis,
but also the direct personal involvement of representatives from think tanks in critical
state institutions.
Importantly, the fragmentation of the SDK as the core organizational mechanism of the
center right, which took place from 1999–2001, ultimately did not endanger the active
cooperation of center-right parties. While SMK was a relatively stable conservative party
(in 2001, the SMK joined the European Democratic Union), after the 1998 elections SDK
underwent a process of internal reshuffling that created conflict within its ranks.
These conflicts stemmed from disagreements about the level of cooperation and the na-
ture of the relationship with the non-left democratic parties. While SDK leader Mikuláš
Dzurinda, who originally represented the KDH platform in the SDK, supported the cre-
3
The Party of Civic Understanding (SOP) was established in 1998 by some left-leaning politicians as a project
criticizing the country’s excessive polarization and the conflict-prone character of its politics.
