The Velvet Divorce

JAN 01 1993 · 12:00

Czechoslovakia in its final form, before the 1 January 1993 split. Klaus and Mečiar negotiated the dissolution at Villa Tugendhat in Brno without a referendum. Place: Federal Assembly, Prague · National Council, Bratislava Figures: Václav Klaus, Czech prime minister · Vladimír Mečiar, Slovak prime minister · Václav Havel, federal president (resigned July 1992) The June 1992 elections produce two winners with incompatible programs. In the Czech lands, Václav Klaus's Civic Democratic Party runs on Thatcherite economics and a tight federation. In Slovakia, Vladimír Mečiar's HZDS runs on Slovak sovereignty and slower reform. They meet at the Tugendhat villa in Brno on August 26 and sign there the agreement that the federation will not survive coalition; an earlier political agreement had been reached in Bratislava on July 23. Havel, who has campaigned against the split, resigns the federal presidency on July 20. No referendum is held. Polls in both republics run roughly sixty to forty against dissolution. The federal parliament passes the constitutional law on November 25, 1992, by a margin of three votes. The country has six weeks to divide itself.