ABSTRACT
In the months following the November 1989 upheaval, the growing Green Party seemed to be one of the decisive political forces in Czechoslovakia.1 The environment ranked as a top priority issue in opinion polls and the Green Party was perceived by the general public as the leading exponent of environmental reform. However, as the results of thejune 1990 general election revealed, the Greens failed to capitalize on this advantage and, after joining an obscure coalition before the 1992 election, the Czech Green Party lost both its identity and a majority of its members. Now, despite having three deputies in parliament, the Greens have fallen into near oblivion. In Slovakia the party split into ‘proCzechoslovak’ and ‘real Slovak’ Greens before the 1992 election; neither has deputies in the new Slovak parliament. Why and how the brave hopes of 1989 should have been so thoroughly disappointed is the subject of this chapter.
