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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 July 2018
Nei decenni precedenti l'instaurazione dei regimi comunisti nessuno dei sistemi politici dell'Europa centro-orientale, ad eccezione della Cecoslovacchia e della Germania, aveva sviluppato strutture partitiche relativamente forti, specie se confrontate con i sistemi democratici dell'Europa occidentale. Dopo la breve parentesi post-bellica di competizione «pluralistica» gli organi rappresentativi e le elezioni stesse erano stati trasformati in strumenti funzionali al dominio del partito unico. Benché il parlamento costituisse secondo le costituzioni di quei paesi l'organo più autorevole dello stato, le stesse avevano finito per recepire il principio (stabilito dalla costituzione sovietica del 1977) del partito comunista come «forza guida della società» (Ulc 1982)
With the collapse of the one-party system, in the last months of 1989, and the transition to a parliamentary democracy of a Western type, the new Czechoslovakian political leadership introduced a new system of representation. The previous one was better suited to the non-competitive nature of elections in communist Czechoslovakia, but was unsuitable for a multiparty system.
The first part of this note describes the electoral laws for the 1990 and 1992 political elections adopted by the Federal Assembly and the influence of electoral systems on the party system.
The author, then, makes a comparison between the 1990 and 1992 political elections and analyses the birth of the Czechoslovakian party system and its transformations after the 1990 political elections. The new party system displays a remarkable fluidity, indicative of its lack of consolidation.
In the competition among political parties two cleavages have prevailed: a social cleavage, as epitomized by the issue of economic privatization, and the national cleavage. Each party had to express its views about social-economic reforms and the national question, namely the structure of the Czechoslovakian State.
The note is provided by an appendix describing briefly the main Czech and Slovak political parties and their manifestos.