ABSTRACT
The Czechoslovak people greeted the New Year 1990 with a sense of euphoria, optimism about the future, and a high degree of unity. There was general public concern for the position of Czechoslovakia in international affairs, which was related to the expected return of Czechoslovakia to Europe as a free and sovereign state. The interplay among its legitimacy, public consensus, and fundamental reforms in the period up to the elections took place in four interrelated arenas of public concern: the political, the economic, the social, and the international. The principal task of this interim government was to guide the country to democratic elections—the first since 1946—which were subsequently held in June 1990. It had to face social and economic problems and open the way to a market economy. A main task of the government was the creation of the institutional and legal conditions for the introduction of a pluralist, democratic political system.
