Parlamentné voľby 1998 v SR - uskutočnená výzva
Parliamentary Elections 1998 in Slovak Republic - the Challenge that Came into Effect

Summary/Abstract: Parliamentary Elections 1998 in Slovak Republic -the Challenge That Came intoEffect. The paper attempts to analyse main causes and relationships of the radical change that the parliamentary elections have brought in the political life of the Slovak Republic. First, the author points to the persistence of the public opinion and explains its obliqueness and a challenge for politicians - how to project a critical opinion majority in the political stands and electoral decisions. It was achieved only after the former opposition parties made organisation changes and in the course of the election campaign. Further, the author reveals the chief motives of the electoral behaviour in view of the results of the election analysis and shows the impact of social issues. He explains the motivation of the voters for Mečiar’s HZDS as being conditioned by clientele relationships and/or by the traditional populist political opinion of the so-called residual group. Further factors of the election shift were embedded in the practical politics of the former government coalition. It was its attempt to facilitate delegatory democracy that failed face to face with the reviving civil society and political plurality supported by the free media. As a decentralised ”trench opponent,” the media represented an insurmountable obstacle for the regime of the concentrated power. In the last part of the paper, the author analyses a group background for electoral decisions; he states that the influence of social structure (it has not been crystallised so far) was not recorded in spite of the intensive privatisation. In the end, he points to potential instability of the political scene. The new governmental coalition not only faces the task how to deal effectively with accumulated problems in the economic sphere and public life, but also the task to give a clear image to political forces and their social background.

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