Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
demands. The first post-communist president of Czechoslovakia,
the Czech Václav Havel, made matters worse when he took a rare
trip to the Slovak half of his country in 1990. In a fit of terrible
judgment, Havel boldly promised he'd close the ugly, polluting
Soviet factories in Slovakia...seemingly oblivious to the fact that
many Slovaks still depended on these factories for survival. Havel
left in disgrace and visited the Slovak lands only twice more in
the next two and a half years.
In June 1992, the Slovak nationalist candidate Vladimír
Mečiar fared surprisingly well in the elections—suggesting that
the Slovaks were serious about secession. The politicians plowed
ahead, getting serious about the split in September 1992. The
transition took only three months from start to finish.
The people of Czechoslovakia never actually voted on the
separation; in fact, public opinion polls in both regions were two-
thirds
against
the split. This makes Slovakia quite possibly the
only country in the history of the world to gain independence...
even though its citizens didn't want it.
The Velvet Divorce became official on January 1, 1993, and
each country ended up with its own capital, currency, and head
of state. The Slovaks let loose a yelp of excitement, and the
Czechs emitted a sigh of relief. For most, the divorce dissolved
tensions, and a decade and a half later, Czechs and Slovaks still
feel closer to each other than to any other nationality.
Union (see sidebar on page 103); and January 1, 2008, when the
country entered the Schengen Agreement, effectively erasing its
borders for the purposes of travel.
Havel ended his second (and, constitutionally, last) five-
year term in 2003. While he's still admired by Czechs as a great
thinker, writer, and fearless leader of the opposition movement
during the communist days, many consider him less successful as a
president. Some believe that the split of Czechoslovakia was partly
caused by Havel's initial insensitivity to Slovak demands. The
current president, Václav Klaus, was the pragmatic author of the
economic reforms in the 1990s. Klaus' surprising election in 2003
symbolized a change from revolutionary times, when philosophers
became kings, to modern humdrum politics, when offices are
gained by bargaining with the opposition (Communist votes in the
Parliament were the decisive factor in Klaus' election).
In 2008, Klaus was narrowly reelected by the Parliament for
a second term, despite revelations that his economic reforms had
resulted in widespread corruption in the privatizing business sec-
tor. The scandal became the defining issue of the election, with
Klaus and his conservative party denying responsibility for (and
