Summary: In 1989 after November the Czechoslovakia had a new hope. The communism had fallen and with it the Iron Curtain. The Czechoslovakia become Czech Republic and Slovakia

In the euphoria of the Velvet Revolution and with the creation of the Civic Forum in Prague and the Public Against Violence (VPN) in Slovakia an Interim Government was established. Their priorities were to set up institutional framework for the new democracy before the elections of June, 1990. These were the first free elections in 60 years with a participation of 99%, VPN and Civic Forum won 60% of the votes and Václav Havel is re-elected President. Another preoccupation of the two groups was to begin working out proposals for economic reforms, task that was given to Valtr Komárek, the head former of the Institute for Forecasting who started working in a market economy. Although his lack of enthusiasm make him loose support and by April he had resigned. At the same time a group of economist together with Václav Klaus the Minister of Finance then, started to plan economic reforms. Komárek successor was however, Václav Valeš but the anti-communist atmosphere he had a credibility problem for being one of the Communist Party former consequently power shifted to Klaus a Market-liberal.

The 1990 elections
The elections were a chance to change the federal structure, therefore the parliament encompassing two houses, the House of People and the House of Nations. Both Czech Lands and Slovakia could elect their own governments and general assemblies: the National Council. The dissatisfaction with the communists gave majority to the Civic Forum for the Czech Lands seats and the same happened with the sister VPN for Slovak seats. Havel was at the time the most powerful politician, therefore he had great influence to form the new cabinet. He decided to keep Calfa, as a prime minister and Klaus as the finance misister. Klaus, being an arrogant man he challenged the old-guard of the Civic Forum.
New groups were created but the most relevant was the Civic Democratic Party (ODS), created by Klaus and his followers and the CSSD.

The elections in 1992 and the breaking up of Czechoslovakia
Klaus come across as a man of action and with a good financial plan promising to turn the country into a Western-type market economy. In Czech Lands, Klaus won the elections with ODS and its coalition to KDS gaining 76 seats surprisingly the communist won 35 seats and the CSSD, 16. The results were catastrophic to Havel’s Civic Movement that didn’t make to the parliament. In Slovakia centre-right won majority while the communists and the leader of Movement for Democratic Slovakia Vladimir Mečiar become prime minister. Havel, the president asked Klaus to form the government based with both leaders Mečiar and Klaus who agreed to be able to live with the divergences. Although that didn’t happened, even when the public opinion was not to separate Czechoslovakia into two countries. Neither leader wanted to change their politics, and against Havel’s protests the two men agreed to part ways and establish two countries. Havel resigned leave the new Czech Republic without a president but returned after six months being the first President of Czech Republic.

The seasons are not heard to find. Slovaks were generally unhappy with the position of their politicians in the government, only with Dubček Slovaks felt represented in Prague. The differences on the economic reform issue the Czech lands were more highly industrialized and thus better able to receive the reforms. The unemployment was 10.38% for Slovakia and 2.57% to Czech Lands. The exporting of military equipment was cancelled. Slovakia was traditionally dominated by agriculture and only with experiences the first industrialization with in the last two decades of communism.
Polls showed that at the time most people didn’t want the division of the country and lack of a referendum and the tensions between both leaders precipitated the dual end. Czechoslovaks knew that both leaders were strong and the cooperation would be hard but they didn’t expect the separation.

Privatization, social policy, foreign rule – Klaus policies 1992-1996
The top priority of the prime minister was to privatize the public sector. Therefore he allows restitutions of all property that had been nationalized by the communist regime, although only until 1948. Klaus ideology was: if enterprises were privately owned and priced set free from government control, the market would take care of everything else. This meant that the property that had been nationalized by the Nazis (1954-1948) were exclude, resulting in a disadvantaged to Jews and German Sudetes, the last who were expelled from the county in 1948.

The reform was supported by a voucher system: every citizen had the right to purchase one voucher for 1.000Czech crowns with whish to purchase shares in enterprise during the public auction. By this time Victor Kožený started the firm Harvard Capital and Consultancy whish premise 1,000% return on investment. Therefore if a person that exchanged a voucher for a share in the firm could at any time sell back their share for 10.000 crowns. The result was an scheme of success with over 8milion Czechs having purchased vouchers. But its creator Kožený, was evolved in financial scandal and left the county.

The system although didn’t predicted one point. The kind of firms like Kožený’s come under control of Banks, since these Banks were owned by the State the privatization system went into a never ending circle. The second problem of the privatization was that Klaus disinterest to set up a legal framework for the new market of economy such as bankruptcy laws and financial market regulation.
The Czech Republic had lost the reputation of the model of transformation in post-communist Europe.
Concerning to social policy Klaus moved to a stricter mean-tasted policy that would restrict state benefits to the most needy. Unemployed benefits were reduced from 90% to 60% of the salary while the period of eligibility dropped from 12 to 6 months. Abortions were no longer free. Although he could not be that radical, he knew that would cost him votes. Therefore he retained the price control in the housing, energy and healthcare. Education and university tuition remained free.

As a conservative Christian government encouraged women to stay at home, conceding extended maternity leave whish was increased to three and half years. Men also had the right to the extended leave although not encouraged y the state and therefore not frequent.
Relating to foreign policy of Czech Republic we can sat that since soon, almost after the Velvet Revolution, had manifested the will to join NATO and EU. In 1997 NATO invited Czech Republic to enter the organization; in 1999 the country was already a member. Concerning the EU, Klaus was convinced that the organization was socialist, so the question for the prime minister was not weather the Czech Republic was ready to join the UE, but rather the UE was ready to join the Czech Republic.

However Klaus expected Germany and Great Britain to support the entrance of the Czech Republic. But his arrogance while visiting Germany, saying that the West had a lot to learn with Czech Republic cost the German support. And the interest from GB didn’t show to be so useful. Klaus had misjudged the West whish did not believe in its exceptionalism. This made other members conclude that Czech Republic would be unreliable and uncooperative.

In the elections of 1998, the CSSD (Social Democrats) was the party with major votes, although colitis with ODS. Together both parties joined 137 seats in the parliament. The leader was Miloš Zeman, who suffered journalistic press crises. While the biased, unprofessional Czech media deserves criticism, a politician cannot attack the media ( in various occasions Zeman said publicly that Czech journalists were “largely amateurs and liars” or “harmless idiots” or”intellectually inferiors”) and still expect its cooperation. In 2001 this situation resulted in the biggest protests after the communist era forcing Jiri Hodac to resign the position of director of the state TV.
Czech Republic finally entered the European Union in 2004. Nowadays the president of the country is Václav Klaus and its prime minister is Mirek Topolánek.