ABSTRACT
Following the break-up of Civic Forum in 1991 and the federal and Czech elections of June 1992, the governing Czech coalition of ODS, the Czechoslovak People’s Party – Christian and Democratic Union (KDU-CSL), ODS and the Civic Democratic Alliance (ODA) emerged in a politically dominant position. They faced a largely supportive and uncritical media (Kettle 1995) and a fragmented opposition, controlled key economic ministries and exercised considerable influence in the Czech state bureaucracy. The independent Czech Republic appeared to some observers as an island of conservatism and free market radicalism in a sea of nationalism, populism and post-communism.
