ABSTRACT
The Czech and Slovak parties that won the 1992 elections and formed ruling governments in their respective republics were the architects both of the dismantling of the old state and the construction of the new ones. Parties that had previously focused on the Czech-Slovak relationship, seeking independence or fuller autonomy within the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (CSFR), had suddenly attained their maximal political demands on the national issue: self-determination. In economic policy, the goal of the Moravcik government was to signal renewed commitment to marketization and privatization, launching a second wave of so-called voucher privatization (the first since Slovak independence) and bringing the budget closer to balance. In fact, whereas Slovak politics had previously revolved around relations with the Czechs, it now appeared to have become an intensely personalist politics that revolved around Meciar himself. In a poll published in January 1995, two years after independence, only about 20 percent of Czechs and one-third of Slovaks regret the breakup.
