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ation of strong center-right entity (of the people’s party type), the “mother” parties of SDK,
especially KDH, attempted to preserve their own ideological identity and organizational
independence. At the end of 2000, members of KDH who belonged to the conservative
part of the party left the parliamentary caucus of SDK. By this time, KDH had definitively
separated from the SDK and became an official, fifth member of the ruling coalition.
Dzurinda succeeded, however, in persuading the majority of liberal representatives of
SDKÚ (members of the DÚ) and part of the Christian-democratic platform to support his
idea of establishing a new people’s party. In 2000, a group of SDK representatives around
Dzurinda founded the Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ), into which the
DÚ eventually merged. The founders of the SDKÚ labeled their party an instrument for
the integration of center-right formations and a successor of the SDK in unifying the
Christian, conservative and liberal forces. According to them, it was designed to be a
union of center-right political trends, ideas and personalities and a place for Catholic,
Evangelical and other Christian democrats to meet with liberals, modern conservatives
and other democratically thinking citizens. They argued that SDKÚ wanted to move be-
yond the frontiers of ideological isolationism and to end the senseless division between
confessional and civic-right forces. The founders of the new party considered coalitions of
minor parties as a historical failure and a destabilizing element on the political scene.
These ideas were only partially fulfilled. Due to differing opinions about how to cooperate
among center-right parties, a strong competition developed between SDKÚ and KDH.
While KDH maintained a substantial portion of its original supporters, SDKÚ failed to
carry out the scenario of its own transformation into the dominant people’s party which
would succeed in filling the area on the center right and replace the existing parties. It
became a medium-sized and relatively strong party, but not a dominant political actor.
Although conflicts accompanying the reshuffling of the center-right part of the spectrum
influenced the level of electoral support of particular parties, they did not have any essen-
tial impact on the implementation of reforms. The SDKÚ, KDH and SMK all cooperated
to enact reform policies and effectively defended their policies against the efforts of leftist
parties within the coalition (not to mention the national-populist parties). Understand-
ably, many compromises within the “internal leftist opposition” of SDĽ and SOP were also
necessary.
In 1999-2001, significant shifts occurred in Slovakia’s party system that influenced the
makeup of the political landscape and, to a great degree, predetermined the results of the
2002 parliamentary elections. In 1999, a split took place in the post-Communist SDĽ and
as a result, the party’s very popular vice chairman, Robert Fico, left the party. Fico founded
the new opposition party
Smer
(meaning “direction” in Slovak), which eventually became
a dominant force on the left as the SDĽ practically disappeared. After the liberal DÚ unit-
ed with SDKÚ in 2001, there was an opportunity for a new liberal party to emerge. The
Alliance of the New Citizen (ANO), created in 2001, took advantage of this opportunity.
It was created by media entrepreneur Pavol Rusko, the co-owner of
Markiza
, the most
popular Slovak private TV channel.
Both new parties –
Smer
and ANO – tried to get support from voters disappointed with
the policies of the Dzurinda government.
Smer’s
intent was to attract former SDĽ voters,
while ANO attempted to address sectors of the center-right electorate. Both parties criti-
