Prague Stages a Festival of Freedom on Eve of National Elections : Czechoslovakia: Havel’s Civic Forum and its Slovak ally may fall short of a majority in Parliament.

An air of street festival prevails here on the eve of the first free elections in Czechoslovakia in 44 years.

The city is adorned with posters, Vaclav Havel’s face beams from half the store windows in town, and hundreds of hawkers peddle campaign buttons for Civic Forum, the mass organization that brought down the hard-line Communist regime here last November.

Czechoslovaks, from all appearances, are loving it all as they stroll down a main shopping street, Na Prikope, chuckling at a three-block-long display of the Communist past in their country.

The display, spread over kiosks and in shop windows, includes enlarged photocopies of documents and the Communist Party’s newspaper, Rude Pravo, all adding up to a 40-year litany of Communist lies. A museum exhibition featuring more of the same, has a perpetual line of visitors, right up to the 10 p.m. closing time.

It all adds up to a sort of flag-bedecked festival of freedom, and none of it bodes well for the Communists, who are competing along with 21 other parties in elections that begin today and end Saturday afternoon.

Civic Forum--founded by President Havel and his fellow dissidents--and their partners in Slovakia, Public Against Violence, are expected to win the most votes in the election, but perhaps not enough to control the federal Parliament without forming a coalition with smaller parties, such as the Greens, who are campaigning primarily on environmental issues.

Polls show Civic Forum and Public Against Violence winning from 39% to 42% of the vote, with their nearest rivals, the Christian Democrats, well back at 13% to 15%. The Communists are expected to net about 8% to 9%.

One of the hottest issues in the campaign has turned out to be Slovak nationalism. The Christian Democratic Movement, which could turn out to be the biggest vote-getter in Slovakia, has stopped short of advocating secession from the federal republic, but the heat of the election campaign has given the Slovaks what they feel is a long-overdue opportunity to air their grievances.

The Christian Democrats have won a strong Slovak following by advocating a confederation that would loosen ties between two peoples whose languages are very similar, but whose customs and history differ.

Only foreign affairs, defense and finance should be regulated at a national level, said Ivan Carnogursky, head of the Slovak Christian Democrat Movement.

The political fight between the Christian Democrats and Civic Forum has heated up in recent days and now threatens any possible coalition between the two parties after the election.

Josef Bartoncik, head of one of the three groups that forms the Christian Democrat coalition, has denied charges, in wide circulation for weeks, that he was a former secret police informer. But a deputy interior minister, Jan Ruml, said on national television Wednesday that he has “damaging” information, which he declined to specify.

The timing of Ruml’s statement, two days before the election, struck Christian Democrat leaders as a declaration of war.

Timing also appeared to be a major consideration in the brief detention of five former Communist officials, including former party leader Milos Jakes, who were questioned by Interior Ministry officials and released--also two days before the vote. No charges were filed against the formerly powerful officials, but it was suggested that “property machinations” were among the matters under discussion.

The idea that former Communist leaders used their positions to enrich themselves is widely held here, even though little evidence has been produced to back up the notion. But those two actions by the government suggests that Civic Forum is not above engaging in a bare-knuckled political fight.

Even Havel has come in for criticism for his open campaigning for Civic Forum and its allies. The criticism has come mainly from Christian Democrats in Slovakia, who have argued that the presidency is supposed to be nonpartisan and that Havel has unfairly used his popularity to boost the political fortunes of his friends.

Havel was booed by a group of nationalist zealots at a rally earlier this week in Bratislava, but that appeared to be an aberration in a country that still remains madly in love with its president.

He is expected to be elected by the new federal Parliament without difficulty.

In addition, voters will chose parliaments for the Czech and Slovak republics.