Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 10, 1990 TAG: 9006100228
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From Newsday and The Washington Post
DATELINE: PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA LENGTH: Medium
The umbrella grouping, which led the "velvet revolution" that overthrew Communist rule six months ago, was considered likely to capture 47 percent to 48 percent of the votes, according to computer projections of Czechoslovak television six hours after the polls closed.
Under a complex system of proportional representation, the victory would translate into 170 seats in the bicameral 300-seat legislature for the Forum and the Public Against Violence, its Slovak sister party. The Christian Democrats and Communists were almost tied for second place, with each winning slightly more than 12 percent. That translated into 48 seats for the Christian Democrats and 45 for the Communists.
Most of the other 18 parties won less than 5 percent, excluding them from the federal assembly. But the first free elections since 1946 confirmed a pronounced nationalist trend in predominantly Roman Catholic Slovakia. There, one vote in seven was for the radical Slovak National Party, which favors secession under the slogan "Slovakia for the Slovaks."
More than 96 percent of the country's 11.2 million registered voters turned out for two days of voting that Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., here as an observer, called "wonderfully boring" for its order and calm.
The sudden and tearful exception to that boredom came late in the evening when a prominent co-founder of the Civic Forum's sister movement resigned after admitting he had once agreed to work as an informant for the Communist secret police.
Jan Budaj, a founding member of Public Against Violence, said in an emotional news conference in the Slovak capital, Bratislava, that he was withdrawing from political life because he had signed papers agreeing to collaborate with the secret police. Budaj is the latest of more than 160 candidates to withdraw under a cloud of scandal.
by CNB