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Ethnopolitics in the New Europe, by John T. Ishiyama and Marijke Breuning
3. The Hungarian Parties in Slovakia
The collapse of the Czechoslovak Communist regime after the Velvet Revolution of December 1989 marked not only the end of one of the most Stalinist systems in Eastern Europe, but also the revival of the political activism and aspirations of the Hungarian minority population in Slovakia. Since the dissolution of the Czechoslovak federation in 1992, Slovakia’s Hungarian minority, with an active and very vocal political leadership, has succeeded in drawing international attention to the plight of ethnic Hungarians in the country.
Unlike in Bulgaria, where the incorporation of ethnic Turkish representation in the political process led to the moderation of the MRF’s political demands (but ultimately also to the emergence of political fissures within the movement), in Slovakia, the ethnic Hungarians were originally divided into several groups and three major political parties—Coexistence (Együttélés), the Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement (HCDM), and the Hungarian Civic Party (HCP). At first, the Hungarian parties cooperated easily with the anti-Communist Slovak parties. For instance, in the June 1990 parliamentary elections, the HCP (at that time called the Hungarian Independent Initiative) ran on the ticket of the umbrella anti-Communist alliance the Public Against Violence (PAV). After the electoral victory of the PAV, the party was awarded a ministerial portfolio in the Slovak cabinet. The other major parties, Coexistence and HCDM, formed a coalition in 1990 and received 8.64 percent of the vote and fourteen seats in the Slovak Parliament. Unlike the HCP and the HCDM, Coexistence (as was the case with the MRF in Bulgaria) presented itself not as a Hungarian ethnic party, but as a party that would represent all minorities in Czechoslovakia, including Poles and Germans.
So while a single organization emerged to represent the ethnic Turks in Bulgaria, several parties have emerged in Slovakia that claim to represent the Slovak Hungarian minority. Although later, in 1994, the Hungarian parties overcame their differences and formed a common electoral front, this front did not moderate its demands, but increased its call for a number of legislative changes that would grant political autonomy for Hungarians in Slovakia, along with greater cultural, educational, and language rights. These demands sparked a negative reaction by many Slovaks who argued that the legal rights of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia were already far above those granted to minority populations in the West. This has resulted in the emergence of growing mistrust and political tension between the ethnic Slovak and Hungarian communities.
Why has it been the case that the evolution of the Hungarian Slovak parties has differed so greatly from that of the MRF in Bulgaria? For, as we shall demonstrate shortly, the historical, economic, demographic, and political pressures on the Hungarian population in Slovakia were similar to those experienced by the Turkish population in Bulgaria. But this alone cannot explain the growing radicalization of the demands made by the Hungarian political parties. What, then, are the primary factors that account for these demands in Slovakia?
To address this question the following sections will first identify the various pressures affecting the Hungarian parties in Slovakia. Second, we will identify the political opportunities presented by the structural features of the post-Communist Czechoslovak and the postindependence Slovakian political systems, as well as the structure of competition the Hungarian parties faced. It is the contention of this chapter that the political opportunities presented by the Czechoslovak and then the Slovakian political systems, along with the structure of competition, have provided the incentive for the radicalization of the demands of the Hungarian ethnopolitical parties.
Historical Background
Hungary ruled over what is now Slovakia for more than 1,000 years until the new state of Czechoslovakia was created following World War I. For the first 800 years, Slovaks and Magyars coexisted in relative harmony. The histories of both people were interlocked. After the Turkish occupation of the Hungarian plain following the battle of Mohacs in 1526 and the transfer of the core of the Hungarian kingdom to Slovakia, the political class of the Hungarian kingdom remained Magyar. However, the Hungarian kingdom now ruled over a population that was Slovak speaking. Although much of the Magyar nobility learned to speak Slovak and identified with Slovak culture, there was really no linguistic or national equality. 1 For Slovaks, individual social advancement meant learning Magyar and ultimately assimilating the traditions and practices of the Magyar nobility.
In the nineteenth century, with the rise of Hungarian nationalism and the struggle for political independence from the Hapsburg Empire, Hungarian rule in Slovakia was marked by the adoption of an official policy for the Magyarization of the Slovak population. Magyarization not only became a requirement for membership in the Hungarian state, but also for participation in its political life. In the revolutionary years of 1848–1849, the Slovak leadership sided with the Hapsburg authorities in suppressing the Hungarian rebellion; thereafter, Slovakian cultural and political aspirations became identified as diametrically opposed to Hungarian nationalism. Thus, after the infamous Austro-Hungarian compromise, Ausgliech, which created the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Magyarization of the Slovak population was pursued with special ferocity. In particular, as C. A. Macartney notes, the focus was on the Magyarization of the educational system, the intent of which was to ensure that “all members of society at the peasant-worker level should at least speak and understand Magyar.” 2 Magyarization, therefore, largely severed the linkages between Slovak nationalist elites and the Slovak-speaking masses. In turn, this stunted the development of the Slovak nationalist movement. As Joseph Kalvoda notes:
While the Czechs had a full range of well-organized political parties reflecting class and ideological divisions in the nation, the Slovak National Party was a loose political organization of leaders without a mass following. The party’s representation in the Budapest parliament consisted of three deputies before World War I, and it shrunk to just one after the declaration of war.... Although the policy of Magyarization affected all the national minorities living in Hungary, the nationally and politically conscious Slovaks were on the verge of extinction when the war began. 3
Thus, with the collapse of the Central Powers in the fall of 1918, the Slovak nationalists were in no position to operate independently. The Slovak National Party readily agreed in October to cooperate with Czech nationalists in the Czech National Committee, and together they proclaimed Czechoslovak independence on October 28, 1918. However, during the years of the interwar republic, coexistence between the Slovak and the Czech nationalists became increasingly less satisfactory for Slovak nationalists. “Czechoslovakism,” the official ideology of the Czech-dominated interwar republic, held that Czech and Slovak were in reality two branches of one nation and two dialects of one language. In reaction, Slovak nationalists became increasingly extreme in the 1920s and 1930s, giving rise to a protofascist movement led by former priest Andrej Hlinka, which later became the core of the Nazi collaborationist regime in Slovakia after 1939. This program of Czechoslovakization, however, was also directed at the 634,000 Hungarians (21.5 percent of the population of Slovakia in 1920; see Table 3.1) left by the territorial revisions made by the Treaty of Trianon, most of whom were concentrated in western Slovakia.
| Table 3.1 Ethnic Composition of Slovakia, 1920–1991 | ||||||||
| 1920 | 1930 | 1961 | 1991 | |||||
| Ethnics Groups | Population | % | Population | % | Population | % | Population | % |
| Slovak | 1,941,942 | 65.7 | 2,224,983 | 68.4 | 3,560,216 | 85.3 | 4,511,679 | 85.6 |
| Hungarian | 634,827 | 21.5 | 571,988 | 17.6 | 518,782 | 12.4 | 566,741 | 10.8 |
| Czech | 71,733 | 2.4 | 120,926 | 3.7 | 45,721 | 1.1 | 53,422 | 1.0 |
| German | 139,880 | 4.8 | 147,501 | 4.5 | 6,259 | 0.2 | 5,629 | 0.1 |
| Rutherian | 85,628 | 2.9 | 91,079 | 2.8 | 35,435 | 0.8 | 16,937 | 0.3 |
| Others | 81,988 | 2.8 | 97,712 | 3.0 | 110,822 | 2.7 | 114,527 | 2.2 |
| Total minorities | 1,014,056 | 34.3 | 1,029,206 | 31.6 | 717,019 | 17.2 | 757,256 | 14.4 |
With the Communist coup in 1948 and the establishment of a centralized economic and political system, the new authorities, who staunchly opposed any effort at regional autonomy for minorities, continued the policy of Czechoslovakizing the Hungarian minority. Although “official Hungarians” and other minority populations (particularly, Ruthenians and Ukrainians) were granted the legal right to operate their own schools, newspapers, and cultural associations in the 1960s, these activities were strictly supervised by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (CPCS). With the coming of the Prague Spring in 1968, restrictions on the operation of cultural and educational facilities were loosened, and there was even some discussion of granting a measure of Hungarian autonomy within a loosened Czech and Slovak federation. However, following the suppression of the reforms with the Soviet intervention in 1968, the authorities under the Soviet-installed general secretary of the CPCS, Gustav Husak, reversed these policies and renewed the drive toward the creation of a purely Czech and Slovak state, an effort that continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s.
Following the collapse of the Communist regime in 1989, pressures emerged very rapidly—pressures that drove the Czech and Slovak Republics apart. Once the common enemy had been vanquished, several parties whose existence had been defined in terms of opposition to the Communist regime were left to search for a new raison d’être. Some parties, such as the Slovak National Party, had already adopted a proseparatist political platform and had fared well in the parliamentary election of 1990 after using ultranationalist (and often anti-Hungarian) rhetoric. 4 Throughout 1990, several other Slovak political parties began to take up the banner of self-determination and accused the Czechoslovak federal government of ignoring the painful effects economic reform was having on Slovakia. The Slovak Christian Democratic Movement (CDM) embraced a more nationalist line shortly after the general elections of June 1990 and had clearly benefited from this stance; the CDM defeated the ruling PAV in the local governmental elections in the fall of 1990 and was ranked as the strongest political force in the country in opinion polls at the beginning of 1991. This prompted growing centrifugal trends in the heretofore profederalist PAV, culminating in the secession of Vladimir Meciar and the creation of the overtly Slovak nationalist Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (MDS) in March 1991.
The parliamentary election of 1992 further exacerbated the growing divide between the Czech and Slovak parts of the federation. Although opinion polls indicated that the majority of Slovaks favored the maintenance of the federation, proindependence forces had scored well in the second post-Communist parliamentary elections. By the summer of 1992, for all intents and purposes, two distinct and separate party systems had emerged in the Czech and Slovak Republics. 5 With little to bind them together, the Slovak and Czech parties went their separate ways, and by the fall of 1992, the Czech government of Vaclav Klaus agreed to a formal division of the country. On January 1, 1993, the newly independent states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia were declared.
Caught in the middle of this disintegrative process were the Hungarian parties in Slovakia. The principal Hungarian party, Coexistence, had gained representation at both the federal level and in the Slovak National Council, and it had pressed since 1990 for the expansion of Hungarian educational and cultural rights, as well as for some degree of autonomy within a loosened Czechoslovak federation. The Hungarian parties viewed with suspicion the Slovak drive for independence, fearful that the rising tide of Slovak nationalism would lead to future restrictions and discrimination against the Hungarian minority should Slovakia become independent. These parties were also uniformly alarmed by the success of the more extreme Slovak nationalist parties, particularly the Slovak National Party itself, and the latter’s growing ties with the MDS. Although the MDS had toned down its anti-Hungarian rhetoric in 1992 after the replacement of Vitazoslav Moric in 1991 with the more moderate Josef Prokes, the Slovak National Party continued to contend that the Hungarian parties were in league with Budapest and that together they harbored secret aspirations to reunify Hungarian-inhabited areas of Slovakia in a “Greater Hungary.” 6
The Hungarian Parties
Three entities comprise the major Hungarian parties in Slovakia: Coexistence, the Hungarian Civic Party, and the Hungarian Christian Democratic Movement; accompanying them are two other minor Hungarian parties. Coexistence, the largest of the parties, had been formerly known as the Forum of Hungarians in Czechoslovakia and was founded in February 1990 by the prominent dissident and Hungarian national rights activist Miklós Duray. In 1978, Duray, a geologist, had founded the Independent Committee for the Protection of Hungarian Minority Rights in Czechoslovakia. The committee had been organized initially to resist the Czechoslovak Communist government’s decision to close down the Hungarian schools and to introduce an almost exclusively Slovak curriculum in the 1970s. Duray had been arrested twice, first in 1978 and again in 1983, for “agitating national minorities.” 7 In his first trial, which gained a considerable amount of international attention, Duray engaged in a spirited self-defense, and he was freed from imprisonment. However, following the publication of his book Kutyaszorito (Cornered) in New York, he was arrested again in 1983 for antistate activities.
Coexistence was one of five Hungarian parties that emerged following the Velvet Revolution of 1990. The others were the above-mentioned HCDM and HCP, as well as two smaller entities, the Hungarian Peoples Party (HPP) and the Social and Democratic Union of Hungarians in Slovakia (Socialny a Demokraticky Zvaz Mad’arov na Slovensku [SZDMS]); this latter was the successor to the sole Hungarian organization approved by the Communist regime, the Cultural Association of Hungarian Working People in Czechoslovakia (Csemadok). Initially, each of the Hungarian parties differed from the others in three important ways: (1) in the constituencies they purported to represent; (2) in their respective attitudes concerning the relationship between political and economic reform and minority rights; and (3) in their positions regarding the effects of Slovakian independence on the Hungarian population.
For its part, Coexistence originally purported to represent the interests of all minorities in Czechoslovakia, including Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, and Ruthenians, although this changed very rapidly after the declaration of Slovak independence. The party contended that the protection of minority rights took precedence over the broader process of democratization and reform, which made it the special target of the Slovak nationalists as a radical separatist Hungarian party. In terms of the party’s attitude toward Slovak independence, Coexistence’s leadership maintained that an independent Slovakia would be detrimental to the rights of Slovakia’s minority populations, and the party strongly supported the maintenance of the Czechoslovak federation. 8 Once independence became inevitable, however, the leadership of Coexistence argued for a new administrative framework to be established in independent Slovakia, one that would recognize the cultural and administrative autonomy of Hungarian majority regions. 9 Moreover, Coexistence was quite vocal about noting the importance of Hungary in maintaining the rights of the Hungarian population in Slovakia. 10
The second major force, the HCDM, which was founded in March 1990, grew out of the Hungarian Christian Democratic Clubs in Slovakia. The HCDM formed an electoral coalition with Coexistence for the first competitive parliamentary election in June 1990. Shortly following the election, the HCDM experienced internal conflicts over whether the party should strengthen its ties with Coexistence. Ultimately, the pro-Coexistence forces within the party were able to pressure the chairman, Béla Bugár, to pursue closer ties with Coexistence. To further unity in 1992, the political program of the HCDM was adjusted to include demands that also appeared in the Coexistence program, particularly the demands for cultural autonomy, opposition to the dissolution of the Czechoslovak federation, and the importance of Hungary in protecting the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. 11 After Slovak independence, differences emerged between the two parties, especially over the issue of Hungarian political autonomy.
The third major player, the HCP, emerged from the Hungarian Independent Initiative, which had been established in November 1989 by longtime dissidents Laszlo Nagy, Lajos Grendel, Kálmán Balla, and Károly Tóth. Originally, the party had existed under the PAV umbrella; but in the 1990 elections, the party ran as part of the PAV list and won a total of six seats in the Slovak National Council. Like Coexistence, HCP traces its origins to Duray’s Independent Committee for the Protection of Hungarian Minority Rights in Czechoslovakia. However, unlike Coexistence and the HCDM, the leadership of HCP argued that democratization must precede the drive to fully gain Hungarian group rights and generally opposed the demand for territorial-political autonomy for the Hungarian community in Slovakia. Relations between Coexistence and the HCP prior to Slovak independence were strained at best. The leaders of the Coexistence and HCDM coalition (particularly Duray) viewed the HCP as essentially a collaborationist party. For its part, the HCP considered the radical demands of Coexistence as an invitation for the dangerous reaction of antidemocratic forces in the Slovak community. 12 Despite the HCP being the most moderate of the Hungarian parties in Slovakia, Slovak parties have been reluctant to cooperate with it for fear that such behavior may cost them politically. In 1992, for instance, the PAV refused to extend coalition partnership to the HCP because the PAV leadership reckoned that allowing its predecessor (the Hungarian Independent Initiative) a place on the movement’s list had cost the PAV 20,000 votes. 13
Two other noteworthy Hungarian organizations emerged during 1990– 1992; the first was the HPP, founded in December 1991 by historian and former member of Coexistence Gyula Popély. The HPP was the only party to argue that Slovak independence would have a positive effect on the Hungarian minority; an independent Slovakia, it claimed, was the lesser of two evils when compared to the antidemocratic Czechoslovakia. 14 The HPP, however, remained small and ineffectual. In the 1992 elections, the party could not muster the 10,000 signatures required under the electoral law to place its label on the ballot, although it was able to include its candidates on the Coexistence and HCDM lists. 15 The second organization was the SZDMS, the descendant of the “official” Hungarian organization during the Communist period. Although its leader, Gyozo Bauer, publicly stated that the movement does “not want to interfere in politics,” its avid defense of Hungarian language and educational rights has aligned the movement with Coexistence. 16
Economic Factors
The economic challenges the Slovak Republic has faced as a newly independent state are largely the result of the economic policies of the previous Communist regime. Under Communist rule, industrial investment expanded rapidly in Slovakia, somewhat mitigating the gap that had traditionally existed between the Slovak and Czech economies. However, the development of Slovak industry was pursued by constructing large heavy-industrial enterprises, particularly in metalworking and machine building, as well as the construction of numerous large armaments factories. By the late 1980s, defense-sector plants accounted for 6 percent of Slovak industrial output, and more than 80 percent of this output was earmarked for export.
The collapse of the Communist regime in 1989 was followed by the adoption of a series of economic reforms by the Czechoslovak federal government, which were implemented in 1991. These included price liberalization and the introduction of the now well-known voucher method of large-scale privatization. The shift to price liberalization and to world market prices was particularly injurious to the Slovak economy. The collapse of the CMEA forced the Slovak Republic to pay higher prices for Soviet oil and natural gas imports from 1991 onward, which damaged the heavy-industrial base of the Slovak economy. Further, with the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the ban imposed by the Czechoslovak federal government on weapons exports to the developing world, the Slovak armaments industry suffered badly. 17 Although it was hoped that privatization would make available investment funds for retooling Slovak industry, Slovak investors were more interested in investing in Czech firms, and Czechs showed very little interest in purchasing shares in Slovak firms. 18
The net result, as in other Eastern European economies in transition (such as Bulgaria), was widespread unemployment and the contraction of the economy. Unemployment rates in Slovakia were similar to those reported in Bulgaria (see Table 2.2), with the highest unemployment occurring in areas that were most dependent on the armaments trade: Rimskava Sobota (21.6 percent), Michalovce (20.4), Roznova (19.9), Orlova (20.0), and Velky Krtis (20.0). The lowest rates were reported in Bratislava (4.3), Trncin (7.7), Mikulas (8.1), and Kosice (8.4). The transition had a particularly damaging effect on the Slovak Hungarian population. As indicated in Table 3.3, unemployment rates in districts with a large ethnic Hungarian population have been generally higher than in other districts.
| Table 3.2 Macroeconomic Indicators and Degree of Regional Integration, Slovakia, 1990–1995 | ||||||
| 1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | |
| Change in real GDP | -2.5 | -11.2 | -7.0 | -6.5 | 4.8 | 7.0 |
| Gross industrial production | -4.0 | -25.4 | -13.7 | -13.5 | 6.7 | n.a. |
| Gross agricultural production | -7.2 | -7.4 | -13.9 | -15.9 | n.a. | n.a. |
| Unemployment | 1.5 | 11.8 | 10.4 | 14.2 | 14.5 | n.a. |
| Inflation | 10.4 | 61.2 | 10.0 | 25.1 | 14.0 | 9.9 |
| Real industrial wages (1990 = 100) | 100 | 72 | 68 | 65 | 85 | n.a. |
| Exports (% of total) To EC/EUa |
n.a. | n.a. | 17.2 | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |
| To Russia and Eastern Europe | n.a. | 71.4 | 63.8 | 42.5 | n.a. | n.a. |
| Imports (% of total) To EC/EUa |
n.a. | n.a. | 16.7 | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |
| To Russia and Eastern Europe | n.a. | 77.3 | 71.4 | n.a. | n.a. | n.a. |
| Sources: Hardt and Kaufman, eds., East Central European Economies in Transition. | ||||||
| Table 3.3 Unemployment Rates and Hungarian Population in Selected Districts, Slovakia, 1992—1994 | ||||
| % Unemployment | ||||
| % Population | ||||
| District | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | Hungarian |
| Bratislava–vidiek | 9.6 | 13.3 | 11.3 | 7.7 |
| Dunajska Streda | 16.3 | 20.4 | 20.9 | 89.0 |
| Galanta | 14.9 | 19.9 | 21.1 | 46.6 |
| Komarno | 12.7 | 21.7 | 20.6 | 72.4 |
| Levice | 11.8 | 16.6 | 18.2 | 35.7 |
| Nitra | 12.6 | 14.7 | 16.9 | 8.6 |
| Novy Zamoy | 11.3 | 17.8 | 19.0 | 42.2 |
| Lucenec | 14.3 | 20.3 | 22.5 | 24.1 |
| Rimskava Sobota | 16.6 | 26.4 | 29.4 | 48.4 |
| Velky Krtis | 13.8 | 21.7 | 20.0 | 35.1 |
| Kosice-vidiek | 16.5 | 22.6 | 25.4 | 13.7 |
| Roznava | 17.0 | 28.0 | 24.7 | 13.6 |
| Trebisov | 19.3 | 19.6 | 16.6 | 40.9 |
| Average for Hungarian and mixed districts | 13.3 | 20.2 | 19.0 | n.a. |
| Average for all other districts | 10.5 | 14.9 | 15.6 | n.a. |
| Sources: Szlovakiai jelentes, A magyar kisebbseg allapotarol, 74; Statisticka Rocenka Slovenskej republiky, 1994, 460-462, 478; Statisticka Rocenka Slovenskej republiky, 1995, 529. | ||||
Political Incentives
Two features of the post-Communist Czechoslovakian system and the post-independence Slovakian political system had a great influence on the development and evolution of the Hungarian parties in Slovakia. The first was the federal nature of the Czechoslovak state. Indeed, of all the countries of Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia was nearest to the structural arrangements characteristic of the consociational solution. Federalism had been an innovation introduced during the reforms of the Dubcek era that had survived the post-1968 repression. The election law was based on the list proportional representation system used during the interwar republic, albeit with modification. In part, this was due to the perceived necessity of quickly implementing a rapid transition to democratic government, as well as establishing a measure of continuity with the first Czechoslovak Republic. 19
While the scope of representation was tempered to some extent by the use of a 5 percent threshold, the threshold was established for each republic separately, rather than for the federation as a whole. This meant that the effective barrier a party had to pass was lower than if a federation-wide 5 percent barrier had existed. Further, the threshold for election to the republican Slovak National Council was only 3 percent, as compared to the 5 percent threshold established for the Czech National Council. As indicated in Table 3.4 this arrangement made it possible for ethnic parties to gain representation by concentrating on only individual republics. This was evidenced by election results for the Slovak National Party and Coexistence, which ran only in the Slovak Republic. Although the former received only 3.5 percent of the total federation vote for the House of the People and 3.88 percent for the House of the Nations, it received sufficient concentrated support in the Slovak Republic to surpass the 5 percent barrier within that republic and hence gain a voice at the federal level.
| Table 3.4 Slovak National Council Election Results, 1990–1994 | |||||||
| 1990 | 1992 | 1994 | |||||
| % Seats in | |||||||
| Party | % Vote | % Seats (No.) |
% Vote | % Seats (No.) |
Sept. 1994. (No.) |
% Vote | % Seats (No.) |
| PAV | 29.3 | 32.0 (48) |
— | — | — | — | — |
| MDS | — | — | 37.2 | 49.3 (74) |
35.3 (53) |
35.0 | 40.7 (61) |
| CDM | 19.2 | 20.7 (31) |
8.9 | 12.0 (18) |
12.0 (18) |
10.1 | 11.3 (17) |
| CPCS | 13.3 | 14.7 (22) |
— | — | — | — | — |
| PDL/CCa | — | — | 14.7 | 19.3 (29) |
18.7 (28) |
10.4 | 12.0 (18) |
| Slovik National Party | 13.9 | 14.7 (22) |
7.9 | 10.0 (15) |
6.0 (9) |
5.4 | 6.0 (9) |
| Coexistence | 8.6 | 9.3 (14) |
7.4 | 9.3 (14) |
8.0 (12) |
— | — |
| HCb (Együtélés, HCDM, HCP) | — | — | — | — | — | 10.2 | 11.3 (17) |
| Democratic Party | 4.4 | 4.7 (7) |
<5 | — | — | — | — |
| DUc | — | — | — | — | 12.7 (19) |
8.6 | 10.0 (15) |
| Greens | 3.5 | 4.0 (6) |
<5 | — | — | <5 | — |
| SWAd | — | — | — | — | 0.6 (1) |
7.3 | 8.7 (13) |
|
Sources: Statisticka Rocenka Slovenskej republiky, 1994, 460-462, 478; Statisticka Rocenka Slovenskej republiky, 1995. Notes: a. PDL/CC = Party of the Democratic Left/Common Choice. b. HC = Hungarian Coalition. c. DU = Democratic Union. d. SWA = Slovak Workers Association. |
|||||||
The quality of representation, based as it was on the use of party lists and ethnically homogeneous federal states, promoted group competition over individual competition. Thus, the quality of representation led to the emergence of politicians who pursued an ethnically based political agenda because emphasizing group differences proved to be an effective way of winning seats. This was especially true in the Slovak Republic, particularly as the adverse effects of market reforms on the Slovak economy became increasingly apparent from 1990 to 1991. Although the Czechoslovak election of 1992 established additional thresholds of 7 percent for coalitions consisting of two to three parties and 10 percent for coalitions of four or more parties, the initial establishment of ethnic party representation placed Hungarian-Slovak relations clearly on the political agenda. Moreover, as David Olson notes, federalism and the electoral law essentially converted the initial “country-wide elections into Republic-centric contests,” which provided a strong incentive for politically affiliated parties to run as separate organizations in the two republics. 20 In sum, the incentives generated by the representational mechanisms in turn created the incentives that affected the development of the transitional parties, which itself paved the way for the centrifugation of Czechoslovak politics.
An additional environmental factor that has impacted the evolution and behavior of the Hungarian parties is the structure of competition they have faced. Indeed, the character of the structure of competition created a sufficient degree of threat to compel the various Hungarian parties to forge an alliance. In particular, the growing strength of anti-Hungarian sentiment provided opportunities for more politically radical elements to take the lead in the Hungarian Coalition (HC; Madyardska Koalicio) and steer the coalition in the direction of more direct political demands.
Two developments contributed to this trend: the radicalization of the Slovak National Party in 1994 and the growing nationalism of the overall Slovak party system. In January 1994, the National Party voted to oust its moderate chairman, Ludovit Cernek, and replace him with ultranationalist Jan Slota. More ominously, the party voted to politically rehabilitate its virulently nationalist first chairman, Vitazoslav Moric. 21 Upon his ascendance as chairman, Slota proclaimed that the Slovak National Party had been “purified” and declared his party’s wholehearted support for the government of Vladimir Meciar. 22 Slota then called for Pan-Slavic cooperation and generally questioned the need for Slovakia to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). 23
The first Slovak parliamentary election following independence was held in October 1994. As with the previous 1990 and 1992 elections, the 1994 election was governed by a list proportional representation system based on a 5 percent threshold in four large-mandate electoral districts: Bratislava, West Slovakia, Central Slovakia, and East Slovakia. In comparing the results of the 1994 election with the results from 1992, several observations concerning the structure of competition can be made. First, the Slovak nationalist coalition of Meciar’s MDS and the Slovak National Party did much better than expected. The MDS captured sixty-one seats in the election—down from the seventy-four it had won in 1992, but up eight seats from the number the party controlled just prior to the 1994 election (see Table 3.5). Further, its major coalition partner, the Slovak National Party, maintained the same number of seats (nine). Following the election, the two formed a governing coalition with the ultraleft-populist Slovak Workers Association (SWA). The biggest losers in the election were the Communist-successor Party of the Democratic Left (PDL) and the Democratic Union (DU), both of which had been the most in favor of a “multiethnic” Slovakia and most opposed to the efforts by the Meciar government to revise the language law. Thus, following the 1994 election, the government was firmly in the hands of the parties that represented the greatest threat to the political aspirations of the Slovak Hungarian parties.
| Table 3.5 Slovak National Council Election Results by Region, 1994 | |||||||||||
| Party/Coalition | % Vote All Regions |
Total No. of Seats Allocated |
% Vote Bratislava |
Total No. of Seats Allocated |
% Vote West Slovakia |
Total No. of Seats Allocated |
% Vote Central Slovakia |
Total No. of Seats Allocated |
% Vote East Slovakia |
Total No. of Seats Allocated |
|
| MDS/AP Coalition | 34.96 | 61 | (40.67%) | 25.44 | 4 | 33.56 | 19 | 44.35 | 24 | 28.71 | 14 |
| MDS | 58 | 4 | 18 | 23 | 13 | ||||||
| APa | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||||
| CC | 10.41 | 18 | (12.0%) | 13.88 | 2 | 9.39 | 7 | 8.66 | 3 | 12.62 | 6 |
| PDL | 13 | 2 | 5 | 3 | 3 | ||||||
| SSDPb | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||||||
| Greens | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | ||||||
| Movement of Peasants Party |
1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||||||
| HC | 10.18 | 17 | (11.33%) | 3.41 | 0 | 20.71 | 12 | 4.51 | 2 | 5.99 | 3 |
| Coexistence | 9 | 5 | 2 | 2 | |||||||
| HCDM | 7 | 6 | 0 | 1 | |||||||
| HCP | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | |||||||
| CDM | 10.08 | 17 | (11.33%) | 12.42 | 1 | 8.14 | 4 | 8.18 | 4 | 13.91 | 8 |
| DU | 8.57 | 15 | (10.0%) | 18.40 | 2 | 6.45 | 3 | 7.86 | 5 | 9.02 | 5 |
| SWA | 7.34 | 13 | (8.67%) | 3.99 | 0 | 5.48 | 4 | 7.74 | 4 | 10.14 | 5 |
| Slovak National Party | 5.40 | 9 | (6.0%) | 9.11 | 2 | 5.53 | 3 | 6.57 | 3 | 2.79 | 1 |
| Others | 12.95 | 0 | 13.26 | 0 | 10.74 | 0 | 12.13 | 0 | 16.82 | 0 | |
| Total | 100 | 150 | 100 | 11 | 100 | 52 | 100 | 45 | 100 | 42 | |
|
Sources: Narodna Obroda, October 6, 1994, 2, in FBIS-EEU, October 4, 1994, 14-15; Abraham, “Early Elections in Slovakia.” Notes: a. AP = Agrarian Party. b. SSDP = Slovak Social Democratic Party. |
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The Evolution of the Hungarian Parties
Unlike the Turkish political movement in Bulgaria, the Hungarian movement in Slovakia did not begin organizationally unified. In the case of the MRF, Ahmed Dogan retained his position as the single most recognizable and vocal Turkish politician in Bulgaria; but in Slovakia, there were several identifiable leaders of the Hungarian movement, each of which had his own political base. Further, each of the major parties represented different political constituencies in the Hungarian community: The HCP tended to consist of intellectuals; Coexistence had a more working-class constituency; and the HCDM was rooted in the Hungarian Catholic community, having grown out of the Hungarian Christian Democratic Clubs that had emerged just prior to the collapse of Communist rule. In sum, unlike the Bulgarian Turkish movement, the various political strands in the Hungarian community were more clearly articulated. Considering this disunity, coupled with numerous personality conflicts, it was little wonder that the Hungarian movement was fraught with internal disputes and a marked degree of fragmentation throughout 1990–1992.
Slovak independence changed all of this. Initially, the establishment of an independent Slovak state was met by the Hungarian parties with varying degrees of trepidation. Bugár, of the HCDM, remarked that independence brought with it a sense of anxiety within the Hungarian community in Slovakia—an anxiety that was justified “in part because many recall the Slovak state during the war, and in part because independent Slovakia has the same government that showed little understanding for people of other nationalities during the past six months.” 24 Nagy, head of the HCP, saw the potential for increased tension yet also the possibility of accommodation in the new regime. 25 Duray, of Coexistence, was most optimistic. Although he did not view the new Slovak government in favorable terms, he saw the coming of Slovak independence as presenting “a huge opportunity” to reorder the existing political framework along the lines of “a compromise that could not be reached either in the framework of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy or in Czechoslovakia.” 26
Throughout 1993, however, the situation facing the Hungarian parties grew progressively worse. Several top officials in the ruling MDS accused the Hungarian parties of threatening violence against ethnic Slovaks in such Hungarian majority regions as Dunjaská Streda. Prime Minister Meciar began to direct rather harsh rhetoric against Coexistence, the HCDM, and the HCP, accusing them of being “purely nationalistic” and completely heedless to Slovakia’s needs. 27 For their part, the Hungarian parties in unison complained of the pervasiveness of anti-Hungarian discrimination under the Meciar government in Slovak political life, noting the virtual absence of Hungarian representation in the national ministries of the new Slovak state. They accused Meciar of promoting policies that were even more exclusionary than those “in the period of socialism.” 28
As a result, the Hungarian parties moved to more closely coordinate their actions. To combat what they viewed as the growing nationalist, and hence anti-Hungarian, orientation of the Meciar government, they appealed collectively to the international community to intervene on their behalf. Thus, when Slovakia applied for admission to the Council of Europe along with the Czech Republic in June 1993 (Czechoslovakia had been a member), Coexistence, the HCDM, the HCP, and the HPP sent a joint memorandum to the Council requesting that Slovakia’s admission be delayed until Bratislava ratified the European Charter on Regional and Minority Languages and complied with the Council’s Recommendation 1201. The latter provision called for the establishment of autonomous authorities where a national minority was in the local majority, but this was not issued as a condition for membership in the Council. 29 In particular, they requested that the Slovak Republic be required to revise the 1990 Slovak language law, which, although permitting use of the minority language in official dealings in communities where the minority comprised at least 20 percent of the population, did not provide for the use of bilingual town and village signs in those regions. Further, they demanded that the Hungarians in Slovakia be allowed to register birth names in Magyar (a 1950 Czechoslovak law had forbidden this) and called for the abolition of Czechoslovakia’s infamous 1945 decrees, issued by President Eduard Benes, which had assigned collective guilt for war crimes to the country’s Hungarian and German minorities.
At this time, the right-wing government of Jozef Antall, the Hungarian prime minister, emerged as the champion of the Hungarian community in Slovakia. Hungary, which was already a member of the Council of Europe, threatened to veto Slovakia’s membership if Bratislava did not draft legislation that would grant the demands made by the Slovak Hungarian parties. Slovak-Hungarian relations had already been strained by the controversial Gabricikovo Dam project and by remarks made by Antall himself when he declared in 1990 that he was prime minister “in spirit” of all fifteen million Hungarians, including those outside of Hungary. Although Budapest was convinced by other Council members to abstain on the vote to admit the Czech Republic and Slovakia, this came only after assurances that Bratislava would comply with the Council recommendations. However, the legislation to provide for Hungarian language signs was vetoed by President Michal Kovac under pressure from Prime Minister Meciar. In response, Hungary refused to sign a bilateral treaty with Slovakia that would guarantee existing borders until the Slovak government guaranteed the “basic rights” of ethnic Hungarians in Slovakia. Hungarian Foreign Minister Geza Jeszensky went so far as to suggest that Slovakia be reorganized administratively into “ethnic cantons.” 30
Tensions within Slovakia also intensified from 1993 to 1994. Some worried that the government policy was creating a “Nagorno-Karabakh in Slovakia” and pointed to polls indicating that Hungarians in southern Slovakia were increasingly advocating political autonomy. Whereas in 1990, only 7 percent of Hungarians in Slovakia had favored political autonomy, by September 1993, 45 percent supported a fundamental political reorganization of the country. Emboldened by these figures on December 7, the HCDM-Coexistence coalition and other local Hungarian groups held a “historic meeting” in the border town of Komarno for the purpose of establishing a “self-administering” Hungarian province with a “special legal status” within Slovakia. Further, the meeting moved to elect a 100-member alternative assembly and called for united opposition to the current Meciar government, which “was leading the minorities to ruin.” 31 In particular, the assembly condemned the government proposal made in early January 1993 to reorganize the country’s principal political arrangement into eight new regions, drawing the borders such that Hungarians would be a less than 20 percent minority in each region, thus de facto nullifying the 1990 language law. On January 8, 1994, about 3,000 protesters in Komarno called for “self-government.” 32
Following the meeting in Komarno, a storm of criticism was directed against the meeting organizers, which included opposition Slovak parties that had cooperated with the Hungarian parties in Parliament, as well as leaders of other Hungarian organizations. In particular, the leadership of the HCP declared that the Komarno meeting did not reflect the opinion of most Hungarians in Slovakia and that minority problems could be solved only within the existing Parliament, not in “extra-parliamentary forums.” 33 This storm of criticism caused HCDM leader Bugár to disassociate his party from the call for territorial autonomy, claiming that the statements issued at Komarno reflected the opinion of Coexistence leader Duray only and not of the HCDM-Coexistence coalition. 34 Moreover, Bugár categorically denied that the demand for territorial autonomy meant the establishment of “ethnic borders” and distanced himself from the originator of the call for self-government, the mayor of Komarno, Stepan Pasztor. 35 Pal Csaky, the parliamentary fraction chair of the HCDM, also went to great lengths to condemn the call for political autonomy, labeling the demands “ill-conceived.” 36
Despite these disagreements, the Hungarian parties began to move in the direction of unifying their respective organizations into a single Hungarian political movement. The leadership of the HCP issued a call in February 1994 for the formation of a three-party coalition among itself, Coexistence, and the HCDM, a proposal to which Duray responded favorably. To a large extent, the move toward greater cooperation among the three main Hungarian parties was motivated not only by a common antipathy toward the Meciar government, but also by the opportunity to oust that government brought on by the defection of several dissident MDS and Slovak National Party factions from the governing coalition. In March 1994, the Hungarian parties together supported a vote of no-confidence lodged against the minority government, and Meciar was ousted as prime minister.
The new left-of-center coalition government that took over from Meciar’s was led by the chairman of the DU, Jozef Moravcik. The DU was made up of three breakaway factions from the MDS and the Slovak National Party. Together with members from the CDM and the PDL, then, the government that succeeded Meciar’s was basically a five-party coalition; it functioned with the tacit support of the fourteen deputies of the two Hungarian parties in Parliament. Under Moravcik, interethnic tensions declined, particularly after the passage of two laws granting rights that had been supported by the Hungarian parties: the recognition of Hungarian names on official birth registries and the provision of bilingual signs. 37 In addition, political changes in Hungary contributed to the reduction of tensions. In May 1994, the Hungarian Democratic Forum lost the general election to the Hungarian Socialist Party, and Gyula Horn, an ex-Communist, became the new prime minister. Upon his election, the new Hungarian government immediately sought to normalize relations with its neighbors and hastened to complete the bilateral treaty with Slovakia. 38
Despite these developments, the attitude of the Hungarian parties vis-à-vis the Moravcik government remained ambivalent. The HCDM, and Bugár in particular, was generally hesitant to pressure the Moravcik government for greater concessions out of fear that this might provide the MDS and the Slovak National Party, now in opposition, with political fodder for the future. The HCP was also positively disposed toward the government. 39 However, Coexistence began to lobby for ministerial posts in the new government and warned that the “vote of no-confidence against Meciar was not connected with support” for Moravcik. 40 Moreover, Duray complained openly that the government was not doing enough to help minorities in Slovakia and contended that support for the Moravcik government was only temporary. 41
Although the next parliamentary elections were not scheduled until June 1996, one of the governmental coalition partners, the ex-Communist PDL, insisted on holding new elections as quickly as possible. This demand was motivated by the desire to establish a popular mandate for the coalition, as well as by the PDL’s expectation that it would improve its political position (and hence its position in the coalition) if earlier elections were held. 42 New elections were scheduled for October 1, 1994.
As the election approached, a certain degree of anxiety began to emerge among the Hungarian parties. Bugár fully expected that the Slovak National Party and the MDS would attempt “to exploit the issue of ethnic minorities in their election campaign. They will be taking advantage of every step of the government in order to demonstrate who is ‘the savior of the nation’ and who ‘protects the Slovak nation against the Hungarians.’” 43 Duray expected the “political tranquility we have in Slovakia right now to end with the start of the election campaign.” 44 Nagy also expected that the MDS and the Slovak National Party would seek to “intensify Slovak-Hungarian tension.” 45 Further, the Hungarian parties could not count on the other parties to consistently support them, even the PDL, which was attempting to woo Hungarian voters by including ethnic Hungarians on its electoral list. Indeed, as HPP chair Popély noted, “Every Slovak party would lose popularity in the eyes of Slovak voters if they cooperated with us.” 46
As the election approached, the idea of forming a single Hungarian electoral coalition gained increasing momentum. In April 1994, the Coexistence leadership proposed a “union” of all Hungarian parties, calling for a commitment by the HCDM and the HCP to form a joint deputies’ group in Parliament, to put forward a joint candidate list in the parliamentary election in October, and to create joint local government and foreign affairs councils. 47 The HCP reacted positively to this call in May 1994, stressing that the party wanted to avoid the fate it had suffered in the 1992 election when it had been shut out of the Slovak National Council. HCP spokesperson Kalman Petocz called for the formation of a political union that “would be the sole legal entity within which the present parties could operate only as... factions.” 48 But the HCDM, which had cooperated with Coexistence in running joint candidate lists in 1990 and 1992, was rather lukewarm in its response to the proposal for a single unified Hungarian party, arguing that it was simply “not feasible before the elections.” As Béla Bugár noted, “The Hungarian parties had a chance to prove that they are able to cooperate. They have been unable to accomplish this in four years.” 49 Furthermore, Bugár was less than enthusiastic about the proposal to form even a common parliamentary faction, arguing that it was “far more advantageous to have two clubs than just one.” He was suspicious of Coexistence’s intentions and asserted that if unification came about, it would be dominated by the Coexistence agenda and would serve only “narrow party interests.” 50
Nevertheless, after several negotiating sessions, the HCDM and Coexistence agreed on July 24, 1994, to move in the direction of merging their two organizations after the parliamentary election in October. This agreement was necessary, according to Bugár, in order to fend off the Slovak nationalists’ attempts to “break it up.” 51 However, negotiations with the HCP were bogged down by Nagy’s insistence that 25 percent of the electoral list presented by the coalition be reserved for candidates selected by the HCP. Both the HCDM and Coexistence rejected this claim as “ridiculous.” Although both agreed that the HCP should be included on the coalition’s electoral lists, the Coexistence National Council insisted that both its members and those of HCDM councils approve HCP candidates before their inclusion. 52 On July 21, the HCP relented on its demand for guaranteed slots on the list and finally signed the agreement to join Coexistence and the HCDM in forming the Hungarian Coalition. In subsequent weeks, the HCDM and Coexistence began to screen HCP candidates who had been proposed, forcing the HCP to remove two Central Slovakia candidates because they were considered politically unreliable and less than fully committed to the Hungarian movement. 53 To preserve harmony within the coalition, the HCP reluctantly acquiesced to the demand. 54
The campaign itself was marked by mudslinging and a good deal of populist and antiminority rhetoric. Shortly before the election, polls indicated that Meciar’s MDS would win the most votes but that the parties supporting the Moravcik government would win enough seats to fend off yet another Meciar-led government. Meciar conducted an extremely energetic campaign, however, attacking Parliament, President Kovac, and the “anti-Slovak” media, promising virtually everything to everyone. As a result of these efforts, the MDS won an impressive 35 percent of the vote, which was only about 2 percent less than what the party had received in 1992; and it won a total of sixty-one seats, three of which were assigned to its tiny electoral coalition partner, the Agrarian Party (AP)—an increase of eight over what the party had controlled in September. Thus the MDS recouped the losses it had suffered following the defection of MDS factions in the spring of 1994. Moreover, the party’s past coalition partner, the Slovak National Party, held its own with 5.4 percent of the vote and nine seats, maintaining the number it had held just prior to the election. Another winner was the far-left SWA, a party whose leader, Ján Lupák, had broken with the PDL and preached a gospel of opposition to chaotic transition and the corruption of the “capitalist class.” 55 Despite internal bickering, the HC fared well with 10.18 percent of the vote and seventeen seats in the new Parliament. The biggest losers in the election were the parties that had comprised the core of the Moravcik government: the DU; the CDM; and the Common Choice (CC) coalition of the PDL, the Slovak Social Democratic Party (SSDP), the Greens, and the Movement of Peasants. Indeed, the CC coalition barely passed the 10 percent threshold for four-party coalitions, as required by the Slovak election law.
In terms of the regional breakdown of the vote, the HC did well in western Slovakia, as expected, where the largest number of Hungarians were concentrated (see Table 3.5 above). Within the HC, Coexistence was the single largest Hungarian party with nine seats, followed by the HCDM (seven seats) and the HCP (one seat). However, in the critical western Slovakia region, the HCDM received more mandates (six) than did Coexistence, whose mandates were more thinly spread throughout the country. The HCP received only one seat, awarded to the party’s chairman, Laszlo Nagy.
Following the election, the new government engaged in a number of measures that were viewed by the Hungarian parties as fundamentally anti-Hungarian. Although the government program announced in January 1995 guaranteed minority rights on an individual basis, these rights were limited to only activities that did not threaten Slovakia’s “territorial integrity.” In addition, the government proclaimed that religious services in ethnically mixed areas of the country must be held in Slovak. The appointment of radical Slovak National Party deputies as the defense and education ministers further angered the Hungarian parties. Most alarming was the adoption in April by Parliament of a new law on educational administration, which allowed the Ministry of Education to remove directors of schools who were deemed incapable, providing enormous power to the Slovak National Party to direct educational policy. Education Minister Eva Slavkovska had declared that such “incapability” included lack of fluency in Slovak and announced her intent of promoting the use of the Slovak language in all public affairs. In particular, Slavkovska advocated the intensive training of Hungarian children in Slovak and that Slovak language, literature, history, geography, and civics “be taught only by ethnic Slovak teachers.” 56 Additionally, state subsidies to Hungarian cultural organizations were cut, while the budgets of such rabidly nationalist Slovak cultural organizations as Matica Slovenska grew after 1994. Further, the government revived the 1993 draft law on rearranging Slovakia’s regions so that the proportion of Hungarians in each district would be reduced to under 20 percent. This meant that the 1990 language law that provided for the use of minority languages in official contacts in areas where a minority makes up at least one-fifth of the population would be effectively nullified, making the use of Hungarian practically absent in public affairs. 57 Finally, as noted earlier, the ruling parties generally viewed the Hungarian parties as a potential fifth column in Slovakia, demanding in May 1996 that the Hungarian parties swear their loyalty to the Slovak constitution before any further negotiations over the rights of ethnic minorities be discussed. 58The Hungarian parties’ reactions to the actions of the third Meciar government have been uniformly negative. Duray described the education and language laws as “atrocities” 59 and called its program “reminiscent of the plans of the German government in the 1930s.” 60 Laszlo Gyurovszky, deputy chairman of the HCP, labeled the regime as “Fascistoid.” 61 Laszlo Nagy called the Meciar government a “parliamentary dictatorship” and stated that the regime pursued policies that would prove disastrous for the Hungarian minority. 62 And Béla Bugár referred to the government’s program as “the worst since 1948” for the national minorities in Slovakia. 63
Despite their unanimity in opposing yet another Meciar government, the Hungarian parties appeared to be incapable of forming a common stance. In fact, shortly after the election, the HCDM reneged on the agreement to form a joint Hungarian deputies’ faction in Parliament, claiming that the Hungarian population would be better served by two factions rather than one. Coexistence chair Duray called this move a “major breach” in the agreement and warned of dire consequences if the agreement were not upheld. Moreover, contrary to the preelection agreement, Coexistence, the HCDM, and the HCP ran separate slates for the mayoral and town council elections in November 1994, often in direct competition with one another. Although Coexistence finished with the most mayoralties and members of town councils of any single Hungarian party (4.66 percent and 6.3 percent, respectively), the combined HCDM and HCP totals rivaled that of Coexistence: Taken together, the more moderate Hungarian parties garnished 4.2 percent of the mayoralties and 6.2 percent of the town council seats (see Table 3.6).
| Table 3.6 Hungarian Mayoralties and Town Council Seats by Party, Slovakia, November 1994 | ||||
| Mayors | Members of Town Council | |||
| Party | Number | % Share | Number | % Share |
| Coexistence | 131 | 4.66 | 2,215 | 6.30 |
| HCDM | 56 | 1.99 | 1,367 | 3.89 |
| HCP | 62 | 2.21 | 812 | 2.31 |
| HPP | — | — | 3 | 0.01 |
| Source: Statisticka Rocenka Slovenskej republiky, 1995, 511. | ||||
In mid-March 1995, the signing of the long-awaited bilateral treaty with Hungary revealed different attitudes held by the Hungarian parties. Although all three of the parties in the Hungarian Coalition reacted favorably to the treaty, Duray was not as unconditionally supportive as were the HCDM and HCP. He openly expressed his doubts as to the sincerity of the Slovak side in implementing the treaty’s provisions concerning national minorities in Slovakia. 64 Although he did not reject the treaty, he criticized the document for being ambiguous in key areas and for being “sewn very carelessly.” 65 Earlier, at the Fifth Congress of Coexistence in Dunajská Streda, Duray had warned that if the Council of Europe’s recommendation for self-administration was not upheld as part of the treaty, then Coexistence would call for “territorial autonomy.” 66 He added that the current Slovak Republic was not democratic and that only through territorial autonomy would it be possible to create a democratic self-adminstrative system: “If we cannot do it for all of Slovakia then let us do it at least for a part of it.” 67 For its part, the HCDM, although critical of the government’s actions, generally limited its demands to cultural and educational rights, carefully denying that the Hungarian movement as a whole sought territorial or political autonomy. 68
The differences among the Hungarian parties became even more evident as 1995 progressed. For instance, upon returning from a visit to the United States in July 1995 where they met with U.S. government officials, Duray, Bugár, and Nagy jointly proclaimed that the United States was prepared to act to protect the Hungarian minority in Slovakia. Duray in particular claimed that the United States was willing to consider removing Slovakia from NATO’s Partnership for Peace program if the country did not continue with the democratization process, a claim the United States later emphatically denied. 69 Shortly thereafter, Duray linked the future of the Slovakian Hungarians with the fate of a Greater Hungary and warned of an international coalition involving Slovakia, Romania, and Serbia uniting “against the Hungarian people.” At a meeting of the World Union of Hungarians at Debrecen, Hungary, he proclaimed that the draft language law in Slovakia was akin to “cultural Fascism” 70 and likened the conditions of Hungarians in Slovakia to those of Nazi death camps. 71 In November, Duray compared the Slovak cabinet to the assassins who took the life of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. 72 Duray’s rhetoric became increasingly shrill toward the end of 1995, which smacked of a degree of paranoia; he stated repeatedly that he was being secretly investigated by the Slovak security service, a claim that his colleagues viewed with much skepticism. 73
Indeed, Duray’s behavior in his relations with his ostensible Hungarian Coalition colleagues has also been quite erratic. After being highly criticized for comments following his visit to the United States, for instance, he surprised everyone by apologizing on behalf of the Hungarian movement to both the United States and the Slovak cabinet for these comments without consulting either Bugár or Nagy. Some observers suggested that Duray was maneuvering to curry the favor of moderate Slovaks and appear as the most reasonable of the three Hungarian leaders; others, including Nagy, wondered whether Duray had come to some secret agreement with Meciar. Whatever the case, Bugár and Nagy jointly condemned Duray’s actions and noted that “the fact that Miklós Duray took a specific initiative upon himself is neither normal nor correct.” 74 Yet shortly after this episode, Duray renewed his call for territorial autonomy and “self- administration,” an approach that the HCDM chair publicly labeled as “unconstructive.” Although, in Bugár’s opinion, cultural and educational autonomy “clearly belong in the hands of the minorities” and comprise a realizable goal, “the demand for territorial autonomy does not solve our problems, even though some Hungarian politicians [i.e., Duray] keep voicing it more frequently.” 75
Bugár and Nagy have both become increasingly critical of their supposed coalition partner Duray: The former deemed Duray’s dramatic comments “ill-considered “ and “deplorable,” remarking that such statements would only “make things more difficult”; and the latter added that such rhetoric would only provide ammunition for the Slovak nationalists to use “for a campaign not just against the Coexistence chairman but against the entire Hungarian coalition and against Hungarians in Slovakia.” Despite this criticism, Duray refused to apologize to his compatriots for his comments and questioned the ultimate intentions and loyalties of his coalition partners. 76
At the beginning of 1996, then, the Hungarian parties remained as divided as ever. Although increasingly isolated both domestically and abroad, the HC failed to provide a united front in the face of an increasingly aggressive Slovak government. The major impediments to unity included the lack of coordination and the clash of personalities. Yet the potential for the greater radicalization of the Hungarian movement remains a very real possibility for the future. As Sharon Fisher has noted, “some fear that if the Slovak government continues to disregard the demands of minorities events like the Debrecen meeting will become more commonplace, and Hungarian politicians will grow more radical. If that should happen, the demands made on Slovakia may grow to the point that the government can no longer handle them.” Indeed, over time, the “Hungarian minority issue promises to remain a point of contention... at least until Slovaks grow more secure in their identity and are comfortable with their new-found statehood.” 77
Discussion and Conclusion
The evolution of the Hungarian parties in Slovakia since the Velvet Revolution stands in stark contrast to that of the MRF in Bulgaria. Rather than one party, there have been at least three that have played a major role in the Hungarian political movement in Slovakia. Attempts at forming a unified ethnopolitical party have largely failed, even in the face of increasing Slovak nationalist influence in government. Much of the responsibility for this lack of unity can be attributed to the fact that all of the three major parties—Coexistence, the HCDM, and the HCP—have largely followed very different programs, with Coexistence the most assertive in demanding political autonomy, and the HCDM and the HCP much less so. Indeed, Coexistence, more than any other Hungarian party, has exhibited characteristics that correspond to the profile of an antiregime party, or one that focuses on changing the political and constitutional principles and structures regulating the manner in which decisions are made. In particular, the leader of Coexistence, Miklós Duray, has consistently pressed for territorial political autonomy for Hungarian majority regions in Slovakia. At times, Duray has even questioned the legitimacy of the post-Communist political regime, especially after the victory of the Slovak nationalists in the election of 1994. In contrast, the HCDM and the HCP, both of which fared well in the local elections of November 1994, have generally limited their efforts to criticizing the existing political authorities, rather than calling for a reorientation of the political system. Thus their behavior corresponds to that of antiauthority parties.
Why has it been the case that despite a similar proportional share of the population (around 10 percent of the total) and similar patterns of past repression and current economic decline, the Bulgarian and Slovakian cases represent very different patterns in the development of ethnopolitical parties? More specifically, why has it been the case that the Slovak Hungarian parties appear incapable of forming a coherent Hungarian political organization? And why do the Hungarian parties in Slovakia appear on the whole to be more radical than the MRF in Bulgaria? The answer to these questions lies with the development of the Hungarian parties prior to the democratic transition, the structure of competition, and the posttransition scope of representation.
First, unlike the MRF in Bulgaria, which had basically been the only unified organization representing ethnic Turks prior to the transition, there were three major Hungarian parties already organizationally in place at the time of the transition. These organizations represented very different constituencies, with Coexistence appealing to working-class Hungarians, the HCP to intellectuals and former anti-Communist dissidents, and the HCDM to members of the Hungarian Christian Democratic Clubs, which had operated independently of Duray’s committee. In addition, unlike in Bulgaria, where the single personality of Ahmed Dogan has dominated the MRF, there are several Hungarian leaders in Slovakia with relatively equal dissident and anti-Communist credentials. In other words, in Slovakia, no single leader has dominated the Hungarian political movement as Dogan has dominated that of Bulgaria.
Second, the fact that the constitution specifically forbidding the formation of an ethnic political party in Bulgaria was adopted after the formation of the MRF meant that despite the existence of a proportional representation election law that provided incentives for the entrance of competitors, the MRF has no competitors of which to speak. Thus, the MRF has had a virtual monopoly on representing ethnic Turks in Bulgaria. In Slovakia, on the other hand, no such prohibition exists, and the use of PR means that there is always a strong incentive for the various Hungarian parties to remain organizationally independent. Hence, there are many parties in Slovakia purporting to represent the Hungarian population and standing in competition with one another.
In general, however, all of the Hungarian parties in Slovakia have made demands that are relatively more radical than those made by the MRF. There are several reasons for this difference. First, in the initial elections, the MRF was able to not only gain a significant amount of representation in Parliament, but it also played a pivotal role as the major balancing force between the BSP and the UDF. This afforded the leadership of the MRF much greater influence on policy than had been expected. In Slovakia, conversely, the Hungarian parties that have gained representation in the Slovak National Council (i.e., Coexistence and the HCDM) have played only a marginal role in policy and have not had the parliamentary strength to block important legislation such as the language law and the proposal for regional restructuring. Indeed, quite unlike Bulgaria’s MRF that has actively been courted as a coalition partner, the Hungarian parties in Slovakia represent pariahs with which even the most moderate of the Slovak parties have been reluctant to cooperate. 78 Moreover, in Bulgaria, overtly Bulgarian nationalist and anti-Turkish parties have been only weakly represented in government; but in Slovakia, Slovak nationalists dominate the political process. Coupled with the current Hungarian Socialist government’s seeming disinterest in promoting the interests of Hungarians outside of Hungary, the Slovak Hungarian parties are isolated and marginalized and face the threat of renewed intolerant Slovak nationalism alone. Thus, it is little wonder that the Slovak Hungarian parties, even the most moderate ones, have pressed their demands for some form of regional autonomy.
On the issue of the scope of representation, Bulgaria and Slovakia likewise differ. In Bulgaria, the MRF remains one of the more internally diverse ethnopolitical parties in Eastern Europe; in Slovakia, the Hungarian parties are exclusively Hungarian (despite Coexistence’s claim to be otherwise). This is due, to a large extent, to the preference of other minority groups—particularly the Roma—to form their own political organizations, rather than affiliate with parties that purport to represent minority populations in general. But the opportunities created by the proportional representation electoral system and the lack of any restriction on the formation of ethnic parties have made the appeal for an all-minority party in Slovakia a hollow one. Whereas internal heterogeneity has limited the MRF in terms of making demands that will appeal to many minorities (which excludes the demand for territorial autonomy) lest certain groups defect from it, the Slovakian Hungarian parties are not so limited. Hence, the more radical demand for territorial autonomy has become part of the agenda for Hungarian political parties.
Endnotes
Note 1: Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia. Back.
Note 2: Macartney, Hungary, 183–187; Seton-Watson, History of Czechs and Slovaks. Back.
Note 3: Kalvoda, “National Minorities in Czechoslovakia,” 110. Back.
Note 4: D. Olson, “Political Parties and the 1992 Election,” 311; Pehe, “Political Conflict in Slovakia,” 1–6. Back.
Note 5: D. Olson, “Political Parties and the 1992 Election,” 312. Back.
Note 6: Ishiyama, “Representational Mechanisms.” Back.
Note 7: Kostya, Northern Hungary, 175–177. Back.
Note 8: Fisher, “Ethnic Hungarians Back Themselves into a Corner,” 58–63; Oltay, “Hungarians in Slovakia.” Back.
Note 9: See comments by Miklós Duray in Uj Szo, January 4, 1993, 4, in FBIS-EEU, January 7, 1993, 25–26. Back.
Note 10: Bencikova, “The Internal ‘Enemies’ of National Independence,” 299. Back.
Note 11: Oltay, “Hungarian Minority in Slovakia.” Back.
Note 12: Narodna Obroda, January 5, 1994, in FBIS-EEU, January 10, 1994, 16. Back.
Note 13: Bugajski, Ethnic Politics in Eastern Europe, 346. Back.
Note 14: Uj Szo, January 4, 1993, 4, in FBIS-EEU, February 3, 1994, 25. Back.
Note 15: Reisch, “Hungarian Parties Prepare.” Back.
Note 16: See Czech Television Network (CTK), in FBIS-EEU, April 5, 1993, 27; Republika, April 5, 1993, 4, in FBIS-EEU, April 7, 1993, 22. Back.
Note 17: Blejer and Calro, eds., Eastern Europe in Transition; Szayna, “Defense Conversion in East Europe,” 133–140. Back.
Note 18: Brada, “The Slovak Economy,” 522. Back.
Note 19: A draft of this law appears in the March 7, 1990, edition of Rude Pravo. In 1990, Czechoslovakia was divided into twelve electoral regions (eight in the Czech Republic and four in the Slovak Republic). The Federal Assembly was comprised of 300 seats, divided into two chambers: the House of the People (with 150 members, 101 from Czech lands and 49 from Slovakia) and the House of the Nations (with 150 members, 75 from each republic). In each of the republics, there were unicameral legislatures, the Czech (200 members) and Slovak (150 members) National Councils, which were also elected on June 8–9. For both the Federal Assembly and the National Councils, all seats were elected from party lists, and additional seats were allocated according to a standard d’Hondt formula. Back.
Note 20: D. Olson, “Political Parties and the 1992 Election,” 313. Back.
Note 21: Slovak Television (hereafter cited as STV), January 15, 1994, in FBIS-EEU, January 19, 1994, 17. Back.
Note 22: STV, February 19, 1994, in FBIS-EEU, February 22, 1994, 15. Back.
Note 23: Slovenska Republika, February 18, 1995, 1. Back.
Note 24: Quoted in Uj Szo, January 4, 1993, 4, in FBIS-EEU, February 3, 1993, 25–26. Back.
Note 27: Czech Television Network (CTK), March 27, 1993, in FBIS-EEU, March 31, 1993, 16. Back.
Note 28: See comments by Laszlo Dobos, the Coexistence deputy in the Slovak National Council, in Narodna Obroda, December 7, 1993, 9, in FBIS-EEU, December 17, 1993, 23. Back.
Note 29: Reisch, “Slovakia’s Minority Policy.” Back.
Note 30: Fisher, “Treaty Fails to End Squabbles,” 3. Back.
Note 31: Czech Television Network (CTK), December 14, 1993, in FBIS-EEU, December 17, 1993, 24. Back.
Note 32: Fisher, “Treaty Fails to End Squabbles,” 4. See also FBIS-EEU, December 20, 1993, 23, and STV, January 4, 1994, in FBIS-EEU, January 4, 1994, 6. Back.
Note 33: Narodna Obroda, January 5, 1994, in FBIS-EEU, January 7, 1994, 16. Back.
Note 34: Fisher, “Meeting of Slovakia’s Hungarians”; Slovensky Dennik, December 29, 1993, 1, in FBIS-EEU, January 4, 1994, 6. Back.
Note 35: STV, January 3, 1994, in FBIS-EEU, January 4, 1994, 6; Slovensky Dennik, December 29, 1993, 1, in FBIS-EEU, January 4, 1994, 6. Back.
Note 36: Czech Television Network (CTK), December 14, 1993, in FBIS-EEU, December 15, 1993, 23–24. Back.
Note 37: Fisher, “Ethnic Hungarians Back Themselves into a Corner,” 60. Back.
Note 38: Pravda (Bratislava), June 9, 1994, 2, in FBIS-EEU, June 14, 1994, 15. Back.
Note 39: Sme, April 5, 1994, 4, in FBIS-EEU, April 7, 1994, 10–11. Back.
Note 40: Slovensky Dennik, February 2, 1994, 1, in FBIS-EEU, February 26, 1994, 11. Back.
Note 41: See interview with Duray in Sme, March 2, 1994, and interview with Bugár, Duray, and Nagy in Sme, April 5, 1994, 4, both in FBIS-EEU, April 7, 1994, 10–11. Back.
Note 42: Fisher, “Tottering in the Aftermath of Elections,” 20–25. Back.
Note 43: Sme, April 5, 1994, 4, in FBIS-EEU, April 7, 1994, 11. Back.
Note 46: Quoted in Pesti Hirlap, March 16, 1994, 9, in FBIS-EEU, March 18, 1994, 6. Back.
Note 47: Interview with Duray in Sme, June 8, 1994, 1 and 4, in FBIS-EEU, June 14, 1994, 15. Back.
Note 48: Sme, May 12, 1994, 1, in FBIS-EEU, May 16, 1994, 7. Back.
Note 50: Slovensky Dennik, June 1, 1994, 1, in FBIS-EEU, June 6, 1994, 14. See also Uj Szo, May 17, 1994, 4, in FBIS-EEU, July 1, 1994, 10–12. Back.
Note 51: Comments by Bugár reported in Slovensky Dennik, July 25, 1994, 2, in FBIS-EEU, June 29, 1994, 8–9. Back.
Note 52: Sme, July 11, 1994, 2, in FBIS-EEU, July 13, 1994, 9–10. Back.
Note 53: Slovenska Republika, August 1, 1994, 3, in FBIS-EEU, August 4, 1994, 9; Sme, August 3, 1994, 3, in FBIS-EEU, August 9, 1994, 12–13. Back.
Note 54: Sme, July 30, 1994, 2, in FBIS-EEU, August 4, 1994, 9. Back.
Note 55: Abraham, “Early Elections in Slovakia,” 90. Back.
Note 56: Fisher, “Ethnic Hungarians Back Themselves into a Corner,” 61. Back.
Note 57: Pravda (Bratislava), May 15, 1995, 2, in FBIS-EEU, May 17, 1995, 8. Back.
Note 58: Jiri Pehe, “Slovak Hungarians Asked to Sign Declaration of Loyalty,” OMRI Daily Digest, May 14, 1996. Back.
Note 59: Magyar Hirlap, September 9, 1995, 8, in FBIS-EEU, September 13, 1995, 8. Back.
Note 60: Pravda (Bratislava), February 1, 1995, 1, cited in Fisher, “Ethnic Hungarians Back Themselves into a Corner,” 61. Back.
Note 61: Sme, July 7, 1995, 2, in FBIS-EEU, July 11, 1995, 10. Back.
Note 62: Anna Siskova, “Congress of Hungarian Civic Party in Slovakia,” OMRI Daily Digest, October 29, 1996. Back.
Note 63: Sme, January 26, 1995, cited in Fisher, “Tottering in the Aftermath of Elections,” 21. Back.
Note 64: Nepszabadsag, March 18, 1995, 3, in FBIS-EEU, March 22, 1995, 26–27. Back.
Note 65: Pravda (Bratislava), March 23, 1995, 2, in FBIS-EEU, March 27, 1995, 26. Back.
Note 66: Reuters News Service, March 27, 1995. Back.
Note 67: Sme, March 31, 1995, 3, in FBIS-EEU, April 5, 1995, 20. See also interview with Jozsef Kvarda, deputy chairman of Coexistence, in Nepszabadsag, April 5, 1995, 3, in FBIS-EEU, April 6, 1995, 12–13. Back.
Note 68: See Bugár’s interview in Sme, March 15, 1995, cited in Fisher, “Treaty Fails to End Squabbles,” 6. Back.
Note 69: Fisher, “Ethnic Hungarians Back Themselves into a Corner,” 63. See also Narodna Obroda, July 26, 1995, 12, in FBIS-EEU, July 31, 1995, 6, and Sme, July 22, 1995, 4, in FBIS-EEU, July 27, 1995, 7. Back.
Note 70: Narodna Obroda, July 24, 1995, 3, in FBIS-EEU, July 28, 1995, 14. Back.
Note 71: Magyar Hirlap, September 9, 1995, 8, in FBIS-EEU, September 13, 1995, 10. Back.
Note 72: Pravda (Bratislava), November 11, 1995, 5, in FBIS-EEU, November 15, 1995, 11. Back.
Note 73: Sme, July 24, 1995, 2, in FBIS-EEU, July 27, 1995, 8. Back.
Note 74: Pravda (Bratislava), July 28, 1995, 1 and 4, in FBIS-EEU, August 1, 1995, 5. Back.
Note 75: Kurrier, July 8, 1995, 3, in FBIS-EEU, July 10, 1995, 7. Back.
Note 76: Pravda (Bratislava), November 11, 1995, 5, in FBIS-EEU, November 15, 1995, 24. Back.
Note 77: Fisher, “Ethnic Hungarians Back Themselves into a Corner,” 63. Back.
Note 78: Alaina Lemon, “Slovak Parties Discuss Conditions for Supporting Minority Government,” OMRI Daily Digest, June 25, 1996; Sharon Fisher, “... And Prepares to Form Minority Government,” OMRI Daily Digest, June 21, 1996. Back.
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