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PDSR) in highly polarized contest troubled by their own disunity (namely PNL tended to
drift away from the CDR) and by the necessity to cooperate with non-right actors, some
of which originated from FSDN.
The CDR’s victory in 1996 has to be attributed to the enormous discreditation of the rul-
ing PDSR in the eyes of voters, as they correctly came to blame the party for the acute
economic crisis and enormous corruption. This enabled a broad opposition alliance the
oust post-Communists to a great extent by outbidding them in promises to improve the
pressing social condition of the population and to put to an end to corruption. Another
significant factor was that in 1996 PNL and PNTCD managed to avoid conflicts between
themselves and thus formed a stable core for the opposition alliance.
Slovakia
is another example of a laboriously crafted, moderate right. The original right, be
it civic (VPN, DS) or confessional (KDH), scored almost 50% of the vote in the first elec-
tions, but soon had to yield to the national-populist opposition of HZDS. Mečiar’s splinter
from VPN thrived on criticizing the social impact of economic reforms and on the per-
ceived failure of Slovak politicians to negotiate a satisfactory solution for the model of the
Czech and Slovak relationship. The politics of the national populists in power induced
intense political conflict which framed the creation of the second wave of the moderate
right in Slovakia.
This “new right” was created from the remnants of the old formations of DS, KDH and
post-VPN groups, where a new element was an influx of defectors from the ruling parties,
namely HZDS and SNS, which eventually created the DÚ. During 1996 and 1997, the anti-
Mečiar opposition of largely non-Socialist provenience arrived at a platform of gradual
cohesion based on political alliances, and later in 1998 on an electoral party, the SDK.
Composed of rightist, as well as minor non-rightist elements, and overwhelmed by the
primary concern of overthrowing Mečiar, the SDK became the core of a broad opposition
alliance which managed to take power after the 1998 parliamentary elections.
As Grigorij Mesežnikov puts it in his chapter, this victory was due to the coalition’s clever
strategy and impressive mobilization of society. The opposition took advantage of its rival’s
weakest point – its “Euro-incompatibility.” More and more, Slovakia’s citizens began to re-
ject the authoritarian excesses of the HZDS-led government as they realized more clearly
that these were the major obstacle for the country’s admission to the European Union
and NATO. Regarding mobilization, the opposition focused tremendous effort on rally-
ing anti-authoritarian feelings, correctly calculating that unprecedented mobilization of
domestic and foreign help in this respect would bring them an enormous advantage. Even
though formally the right ran independently in the form of the SDK, in fact the entire op-
position block (with exception of the leftist SDĽ) participated in civic mobilization. The
right made sure it dominated the block, mainly in the process of government formation.
To sum up, consolidation of the moderate Slovak right of the second generation coincided
with resistance against a national-populist, authoritarian-leaning regime, as well as with
the period of the rule in a heterogeneous coalition of the left and right. Important conflicts
on the right (within the SDK) took place while the party was in charge of government: an
ongoing conflict culminated between proponents of a unification model around PMDzur-
inda, who campaigned for creating a large people’s party, and proponents of a coalition
model, namely the KDH, which maintained that independent parties should be retained
