CZECHOSLOVAKIA
After the Civic Forum victory
A DEBATE has been going on inside the government for some months, between the Finance Minister Vaclav Klaus, who, so at least the press accounts assert, wants to introduce the economic changes as quickly as possible, and Valtr Komarek who has been arguing for caution - probably with the support of Vaclav Havel.
Furthermore, a mass inde-
THE NEWLY ELECTED Czechoslovak government, dominated by the Civic
Forum/Public Against Violence (OF/VPN)
movement, Is pledged to an extensive programme of privatization, deregulation and the economic reintegration of the country into the world market. At the same time the OF/VPN is the political expression of the mass democratic movement that rose up to challenge the neo-Stalinist system. At some point, perhaps quite soon, the economic plans of the of the Vietnamese and others from the country, and, hopefully, a counter-campaign for the rights of immigrants and refugees in Czechoslovakia.
Although the Christian Democrats did not do as well as expected in the election, they remain a major force, especially in Slovakia. The OF/VPN leadership is keen to make an alliance with them, and this may raise the question of restrictions on abortion pendent trade union movement exists, closely tied politically to the OF/VPN, that will certainly respond to the concrete effects of market reforms on workers. At the reforms on workers. At the same time there is a left wing in the OF/VPN, around groups such as Left Alternacredentials.
COLIN MEADE p.5) shows how explosive the information currents.
rights. There have already been exchanges on this question in the press, although there is as yet no sign of an independent womens' movement in Czechoslovakia. The ment in Czechoslovakia. The defence of a woman's right to choose will test the democratic credentials of all political in the police files can be — and how it can be used for electoral advantage if leaked at the right time! Bartoncik was from the People's Party, an old "satellite" party of the Communist Party. Another member of the same party, interior minister Richard Sacher has been widely criticized for his lack of openness in tackling the question of the future of the secret police and the information they hold.
Racist attacks by skinheads have been on the increase in recent months, particularly aimed at the country's large Romany minority and the 40,000 Vietnamese "guestworkers". On May 12 the minister responsible for policing in the Czech Lands was fired for failing to take these attacks seriously — an example of a vigorous response that could well be studied by some of the governments in the imperialist countries that are now lavishing advice about democracy on Eastern Europe.
There will be pressure for the expulsion
The rise of Slovak nationalism - and all the Slovak parties, including the Public Against Violence, struck the pro-Slovak note in their electoral propaganda — will certainly persist and deepen, especially if the Czech parties maintain their traditional condescension towards Slovak national aspirations.
At the same time the strong support by Slovakia's Hungarian population for a party of the minorities, claiming to represent the interests of Czechoslovakia's Hungarians, Gypsies and Germans, shows the kind of regional complications that traditionally right-wing and clerical Slovak nationalism may create.
The next few years in Czechoslovakia will be rich in surprises as the real contradictions and limits of November's "gentle revolution" become apparent. The Czechoslovak situation will intertwine with events in Germany, given the impact of that country's economic might on a newly purchasable Czechoslovakia. *
IT'S OVER:
CZECHS ARE
FREE!
country on the free market. In particular the introduction of legislation to regulate strikes, threats to social rights, especially affecting women, and the wider debate on a new Constitution will provide the occasion for putting forward some elements of a non-capitalist road away from Stalinism.
An interesting straw in the wind comes in an opinion poll summarized in the independent Czechoslovak daily Lidové noviny on June 18, which found that, while 67% of respondents were firmly in favour of privatization in general, only 18% supported the sale of big enterprises to foreign firms.
One way in which the tensions in OF/ VPN may express themselves is around the issue of the internal democracy of the movement. Local Civic Forums exist throughout the country, with very diverse political characteristics, sometimes dominated by cliques from the old regime. It was these local leaderships who drew up the OF/VPN lists for the elections. In some cases there have been several Civic Forums representing the same town or enterprise, while in Bro factions in the city's OF came to blows. Central control, including final ratification of electoral lists, rests in the hands of the Coordinating Committee in Prague, an unelected body of some 30 persons.
The economy is not the only issue on which the new government will face controversy. Another will be that of the files of the secret police and the response of the ministry of the interior to the task of 6 dismantling the secret police apparatus. The Bartoncik affair (see the Article on International Viewpoint #188 • July 2, 1990 government will conflict with its democratic tive and Obroda, who may be able to propose a political response to the loss of popular control implied by selling the