Czech Leader to Open Talks on Coalition With Slovaks

Vaclav Klaus, the likely prime minister after weekend elections in Czechoslovakia, said Sunday that he will begin negotiations today with his Slovak counterpart, Vladimir Meciar, on the formation of a new government.

Klaus spoke with reporters after a two-hour meeting with President Vaclav Havel. Presidential aides said Havel instructed Klaus to begin the process of putting together a government.

Speaking with quiet confidence at the headquarters of his party, the Civic Democratic Party, Klaus admitted that the negotiations with the restive Slovaks could be difficult, but he predicted that a government will be in place by the end of this month.

“We definitely do see grounds for negotiations,” he told journalists Sunday, suggesting he was undaunted by separatist talk among the Slovaks or by Slovak complaints about the fast-track economic reform plan he has pushed for two years as the federal finance minister.

“It is clear that at the beginning, at the starting point of negotiations, that positions are quite different from what they may turn out to be,” he said. “We are ready for quite tough bargaining.”

In voting in the Czech republic, Klaus’ party won about 30% of the vote for two chambers of the Federal Assembly, the House of Nations and the House of the People, and about the same number for the Czech republic’s National Council.

In Slovakia, Meciar’s party, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, came in with about 35% of the vote for the two federal houses and the Slovak National Council.

Although some press commentary interpreted the results as a warning of the breakup of the Czechoslovak nation, the collapse of the federation still seems remote. One party in Slovakia with a strongly separatist platform, the Slovak National Party, attracted only 10% of the vote.

Meciar himself has rattled the separatist saber in his campaign but has never stated outright that he would push for independence and the breakup of Czechoslovakia. Instead, he has spoken of the need for “political independence,” or “autonomy” or “confederation” without defining any of the terms precisely.

Meciar said Sunday that the Czechs and Slovaks will soon produce separate constitutions that will supersede, he said, the federal constitution. But he still stopped short of saying that Slovakia is ready to go its own way.

Klaus characterized the speculation over the federation’s breakup as exaggerated and based on campaign rhetoric in Slovakia, where state-run heavy industrial concerns are in financial trouble and unemployment is growing.

“We still believe there is a basic interest on the Slovak side in maintaining the federation, despite the rhetoric,” Klaus said. “If the negotiations go badly, then, definitely, Czechoslovakia could break up, and this would be a tragedy.”

Klaus also said that the Czech side in the coalition will back Havel for a second term. His present term of office expires on July 5, and his backers hope a government is in place in time for the Federal A s sembly to vote on his election by July 3.

Meciar, in Bratislava, told journalists that Havel’s chances of reelection are “minimal.” The Slovak delegation is large enough to block the nomination, which requires a three-fifths majority of the Federal Assembly.

Responding to a question over whether the Slovaks can block the Havel candidacy, Klaus said: “We have said 100 times that Vaclav Havel is our candidate for president. This is our precondition for talks with Meciar.”

But Klaus said he expects that the the most difficult discussions will involve economic issues.

“Generally, I believe the economic reform plan is taking the right track,” he said. “But if in some areas it has not put down roots and is not making progress, then we will have to try to accelerate it.”