Czechs Break the Communist Hold, Near a Coalition : East Bloc: The opposition will predominate in a new government. Old Guard president’s resignation expected.

The nation of Czechoslovakia stood on the verge of its first non-Communist government in more than 40 years Friday as intense negotiations finally broke the party’s efforts to retain power.

“A new coalition will be formed,” declared Communist Politburo member Vasil Mohorita, who represented his party at the talks.

Echoed Vaclav Klaus, a negotiator from the opposition group Civic Forum: “We agreed on almost everything. You’ll hear extraordinary things.”

Both men spoke as they emerged from nearly six hours of round-table negotiations that brought the Communists and Civic Forum together for the first time with members of other political parties and other national organizations, including the trade union movement.

Participants in the meeting also indicated that President Gustav Husak, the last Old Guard Communist remaining in a senior position, is expected to step down by the end of the weekend.

The apparent agreement came only one day after Communist Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec suddenly gave up attempts to form a government and resigned.

While no list of the new government was released, participants in the negotiations said that the new prime minister-designate, Marian Calfa, a Communist, would head the new government but that the Communists would be in a slight minority.

It was also apparent that human rights activist and lawyer Jan Carnogursky, who was in jail two weeks ago, will be a member of the new Czechoslovak Cabinet.

A brief announcement by the Czechoslovak news agency CTK said that “considerable agreement had been reached” and that the new government will be sworn in Sunday.

An agreement would end an attempt that began 10 days ago to build an interim coalition government that sometime next year would shepherd Czechoslovakia to its first free national elections since 1946.

One of those in the talks indicated that a deal may have been struck for the resignation of Husak, the man who replaced Alexander Dubcek as Communist Party leader after the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia ended the reforms of the so-called Prague Spring.

His fall would remove from high office the final Communist figure linked with the 1968 invasion.

According to Josef Bartonicek, head of the small People’s Party, Husak was expected to give the necessary constitutional approval to the new government and then step down.

Mohorita said the Communists plan to issue a statement today pertaining to Husak’s future.

Husak, who is 76 and in poor health, was demoted from the Communist Party’s ruling Politburo two weeks ago but has remained as president despite opposition demands for his departure.

His resignation would fulfill one of the last of Civic Forum’s principal demands.

Participants said the talks will resume today, but indicated strongly that agreement had already been reached on all major points.

When asked if the new Cabinet is complete, Mohorita said, “nearly.”

Others said that for some posts, Calfa had been given more than one choice by the opposition.

Civic Forum negotiators, who included the opposition’s leading figure, playwright Vaclav Havel, emerged from Friday’s talks in obvious good spirits and a Western television crew said Havel flashed a brief thumbs up as he departed.

While the absence of a complete list of the Cabinet left unclear whether Civic Forum had managed to negotiate places for all of its proposed candidates, Friday’s formula would appear to constitute a considerable victory for the opposition.

In the 19 days since it was born, Civic Forum has brought down Czechoslovakia’s repressive Communist hierarchy, erased the party’s leading role from the constitution, pushed the Communists into a minority role in the government and set the country on its way to free elections.

Calfa was asked to form a government Thursday after Adamec resigned.

If Calfa, 43, is named prime minister as expected, he would be one of the least experienced heads of government the country has ever had.

He went straight from law school to the prime ministry’s legal department, where he worked for 15 years in relative obscurity before being promoted to deputy head of the department in 1987.

He was elevated to the Cabinet 20 months ago as a minister without portfolio, heading a legislative drafting committee within the government.

The first hints of a possible agreement came earlier in the day when the Communists said they were prepared to accept a minority role in the government.

Their willingness to agree to a formula where 50% of the Cabinet is composed of experts with no party affiliation and the remaining 50% is divided among several entities, including the Communists, was the latest in a lengthening series of retreats the party has been forced to make since it began losing its grip on power two weeks ago.

Civic Forum said Thursday that it was prepared to work with Calfa on the precondition that Carnogursky be named first deputy prime minister.

All indications are that this deal was struck.

“We don’t have anything against Mr. Carnogursky,” said People’s Party leader Bartonicek.

Carnogursky is one of Czechoslovakia’s most prominent dissidents. A signer of the Charter 77 human rights appeal, which marked the birth of the current opposition movement, he is well known as a lawyer and church activist.

He hails from Slovakia and published the underground newspaper in that republic’s main city of Bratislava.

Like many dissidents, he was denied the right to practice his profession after signing the Charter 77 petition.

He was arrested last Aug. 17 along with Miroslav Kusy, another member of Civic Forum’s negotiating team at the current talks, and charged with sedition in connection with public declarations that he intended to lay flowers on the graves of victims of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion.

He defended himself in court and was finally released Nov. 26.

Mohorita described Friday’s talks as “pleasant,” and an aide to Havel said that a picture of V. I. Lenin, the father of Soviet communism, was removed from the wall prior to the start of the meeting.

Friday’s breakthrough came on a day that Husak declared an amnesty for persons convicted for a broad range of crimes, including charges linked to political offenses and petty harassment.

The release of all political prisoners has been a major Civic Forum demand, and many have been set free in the past two weeks. It was unclear how many were affected by Friday’s announcement.