After Velvet, Iron….

This article deals with the outcome of the first multi-party elections in Czechoslovakia on June 5-6, 1992. The elections confirm that the two republics are heading in opposite and irreconcilable directions. In Czech lands, free-market reform parties won, but were eliminated by the nationalist Left in Slovakia. The only redeeming international reaction to the results of the elections came from Cuba. According to the Cuban newspaper "Trabajadores," Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia is the only power in Czechoslovakia that is has the ability to stop economic reform and the privatization program of federal Finance Minister Vaclav Klaus.