Lucia Ferencei

This paper provides an analysis of civic activism in the territory of Slovakia since the Velvet Revolution in 1989 until the parliamentary elections of 1998. More specifically, it is focused on the OK Campaign of 1998, the consequences of which lead to an important political as well as socio-economical transformation of the country. It attempts to outline the coordination and cooperation of activists, relations between the political (coalitionopposition) and NGO forces, the involvement and motivation of "ordinary" people in the campaign and training of activists, the influence of hostile actors and fundraising of the project. I would like to question how it was possible to create the conditions necessary for such a dominant change in this country to occur and to enjoy such success. The framework of the paper is based on an interview with the speaker of the OK ´98 Šarlota Pufflerová, various publications on the campaign and works on the transition to democracy written by Geoffrey Pridham, as well as domestic authors such as Grigorij Mesežnikov, Martin Bútora and Soňa Szomolányi.

This article discusses the ethnopolitics of Vladimir Meciar’s government in Slovakia in the period of years between 1994-1998, with a particular focus on the Hungarian minority. The introduction outlines ethnic heterogeneity in Slovakia, giving a brief historical background for some minorities. The next part covers the result of the 1994 parliamentary election, which led to the formation of the HZDS-SNS-ZRS coalition government headed by Vladimir Meciar as Prime Minister. The study also includes the ideological profiles of the governmental parties, which are linked by strong accentuation of nationalism and statism. The article seeks to analyse the ethnopolitics of the government in the above-mentioned election term, evaluate its positive and negative aspects. In particular, the affairs, new legislation adopted and its impact on the largest Hungarian minority living in Slovakia.