Czechoslovakia Politics

It is still two weeks before the parliamentary elections, and the competitors are trying hard to keep the optimism factor high as voters decide which parties and program will lead Czechoslovakia in the crucial next four years of its march through the hazards and dislocations of economic reform and political growing pains.

Czech and Slovak leaders kept saying Saturday that the breakup of their 74-year-old union as the state of Czechoslovakia looks all but inevitable. Yet however difficult it may be to avoid the "velvet divorce" that seems impending three years after the "velvet revolution," the leaders on both sides seem to have left some wiggle room to escape the split.

The former chairman of the Czechoslovak People's Party, who was accused of having worked for the secret police under the ousted Communist regime, was reinstated as party leader. Josef Bartoncik, also a member and former deputy chairman of Parliament, was suspended as chief of the conservative party in June because of allegations that he was a paid agent for 17 years. Members of a special committee of the People's Party voted for reinstatement.

Czech and Slovak leaders agreed early today to split Czechoslovakia into two nations, ending their 74-year-old federation. Czech leader Vaclav Klaus and Vladimir Meciar, the most powerful man in the Slovak lands, said their regional parliaments would make the final arrangements for the country's future--leaving the slightest possibility that Czechoslovakia might survive. But both sides made clear that three years after the "velvet revolution," the "velvet divorce" is inevitable.

About the same time that Czechoslovak Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier told his Warsaw Pact peers that their alliance belonged on history's trash heap and that a new European order should stretch from San Francisco to Vladivostok, he also responded to critics who had accused his government of naivete and messianism.

President Vaclav Havel said Tuesday that when he visits Washington and Moscow next month, he will propose that the next superpower summit be held in Prague. Western diplomats had no immediate comment on the proposal. In a speech to Parliament, Havel also proposed a number of changes, including dropping "Socialist" from the country's official name. "As for the word 'socialism,' nobody knows what it means any more. What is more, it provokes general resentment.

Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec, warning that Czechoslovakia faces the danger of anarchy, said in a nationally televised address Wednesday that he will propose a new government today. He threatened to resign if the Communist Party and opposition forces do not accept his choices. "I cannot bear responsibility for the further development of the situation" if the government does not have "public confidence in the sincerity of our intentions," Adamec said.

Few revolutionaries in history have managed to accomplish what the Czechoslovak opposition pulled off in just three weeks: topple an entrenched, repressive regime with nothing more violent than a firm shove. But as thousands gathered in the city's main Wenceslas Square on Sunday to hear Civic Forum leaders praise the glory of their success, an entirely new set of challenges loomed on the horizon.

Declaring that only a free market system can reverse decades of economic decline here, Czechoslovakia's new prime minister Tuesday proposed fundamental changes that would essentially dismantle his nation's Communist economic structure. After 40 years of Communist rule, "much of our inherited national wealth has been dissipated," Prime Minister Marian Calfa told the Federal Assembly, Czechoslovakia's Parliament, as he outlined the government's legislative program.

The first clear sign that Czechoslovak Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec held views different from his other hard-line comrades came only two weeks ago in the national Parliament. Most Western news accounts of Adamec's speech that day focused on his confirmation of existing proposals to ease travel restrictions. But his later comments, made during a summing-up speech on the direction of government policy and calling for political and economic reform, were more significant.

"They started it," Stefan Klemens said, "now let us finish it." Klemens, a 50-year-old delivery truck driver, had just stood in line for 20 minutes Friday in Prague's fabled Wenceslas Square to sign a petition. In effect, the petition says to the Slovak republic, lately flirting with the idea of putting an end to the 74-year-old Czechoslovak state: "Go ahead. Get lost!"

Czech and Slovak leaders made scant progress Thursday in talks to decide the future of their federation, with Slovaks springing the news that they want their own representatives in international organizations, including the United Nations. The Slovak delegation insisted, however, that any final dissolution of the federation could come only after a referendum presents the question to Slovak voters, a plebiscite they insisted could not take place for at least six months.

As they awaited a resumption of talks over the fate of the Czechoslovak federation, at least a few voices on both sides of the Czech and Slovak divide expressed guarded hopes Wednesday that a final split may be avoided.

Officials in the Czech republic expressed increasing pessimism Tuesday over the chances of holding together their troubled federation with Slovakia. Prime Minister-designate Vaclav Klaus met with Slovak leaders in a 6 1/2-hour session in Brno that lasted into the small hours Tuesday. Afterward, Klaus and his aides said the Slovak leadership seemed determined to lead their republic to independence.

President Vaclav Havel, the former dissident and playwright who has led Czechoslovakia since the 1989 revolution against the Communists, will withdraw his candidacy for a second term next month if the Czechoslovak federation fails to hold together, a presidential aide said Monday.

Parliamentary elections in Czechoslovakia set the stage Saturday for a summer of protracted negotiations between Czechs and Slovaks over economic issues and still more wrangling over the relationship between the two republics.

As they awaited a resumption of talks over the fate of the Czechoslovak federation, at least a few voices on both sides of the Czech and Slovak divide expressed guarded hopes Wednesday that a final split may be avoided.

The biggest of Czechoslovakia's two administrative regions Tuesday announced the country's first non-Communist governing body in more than 40 years as negotiations intensified to form a new Cabinet at the national level. The opposition group Civic Forum welcomed the regional Czech Lands government's new Cabinet, nine of whose 17 members are non-Communists.

Citizens began voting Friday to elect a new legislature, one that could set the economic course for Czechoslovakia and bring the Slovak separatist cause a step closer to resolution. Polls indicate that the Slovak nationalist party, the Movement for an Independent Slovakia headed by Vladimir Meciar, is the leading preference of Slovakia's voters.

It is still two weeks before the parliamentary elections, and the competitors are trying hard to keep the optimism factor high as voters decide which parties and program will lead Czechoslovakia in the crucial next four years of its march through the hazards and dislocations of economic reform and political growing pains.