Czechoslovak Cabinet Installed With

Communists in Minority;Opposition Taps

Havel as Choice For President
Article from:The Washington Post Article date:December 11, 1989 Author:
Dan Morgan ; Stuart Auerbach
A 21-member coalition government, in which opposition dissidents
share power with the Communist Party that once harassed and
jailed them, was sworn into office today as a huge crowd celebrated
on the same cobbled streets where Czechoslovakia's peaceful
revolution began 23 days ago.

Gustav Husak, one of the last remaining hard-line Communist

leaders left in Eastern Europe, resigned as president immediately
after swearing in the new government, in which the Communists are
in the minority for the first time since February 1948. Tonight, the
democratic umbrella group Civic Forum and its Slovak counterpart,
Public Against Violence, announced that forum leader and
playwright Vaclev Havel was their official candidate for president.

As if to underscore the dizzying political changes here, Jan

Carnogursky, a 45-year-old lawyer who was released from prison
only two weeks ago, was elevated to deputy prime minister and
made head of a new commission in charge of overseeing the once
dreaded state security police.

The post of interior minister, which for decades had controlled the
security forces and their secret files on citizens, was left vacant
temporarily in a major concession that the Communists agreed to
only after lengthy negotiations that ended early today.

The negotiations became possible after protests by millions of

Czechoslovaks forced the Communists to give up their
constitutionally guaranteed monopoly on power Nov. 29. The talks
ended a political crisis that began a week ago when prime minister
Ladislav Adamec, who has since resigned, announced a
government in which the Communists were named to 16 out of the
21 posts.

As was announced Saturday, Communists received 10 of the 21

cabinet posts in the new government. The new prime minister,
Marian Calfa, is a Communist, as are the defense and foreign trade
ministers-both key posts in dealing with other East Bloc nations that
belong to the Soviet-led military and economic alliances.

But the Communist forces are weaker than the numbers suggest.
Two of the remaining nine Communists were named with the support
of Civic Forum, which was formed three weeks ago and has had
enormous influence on the turn of events here. One of those,
Deputy Prime Minister Walter Komarek, has openly lambasted
Communist ideology and the hard-liners who were only recently in
power.

Jiri Dienstbier, the new foreign minister, was imprisoned with Havel
from 1979 to 1982. Dienstbier is a former radio journalist and long-
time dissident activist.

Today, an estimated 150,000 people poured onto Wenceslas

Square in downtown Prague, this time not to demonstrate against
the government as in recent weeks but to celebrate the change in
leadership. A festive, relaxed crowd listened to Czechoslovak folk
singers returned from exile, as well as to numerous political
speeches.

Havel addressed the crowd and, to thunderous applause, said: "We

must keep our peaceful revolution shining and pure. We must not let
anyone throw dirt in the face of our beautiful, peaceful revolution.
Truth and love and joy will win. Disbelief and hate will lose."
The crowd responded with chants of "Havel to the Castle," referring
to the Hradcany Castle, home of the president of the republic.

A new president will be elected by the Federal Assembly, which

under the Czechoslovak constitution must vote within two weeks of a
vacancy. In Czechoslovakia, the presidency is an office more
powerful for the influence it can wield than for the constitutional
power it commands.

In an interview with the official CTK news agency today, Alexander

Dubcek, leader of the "Prague Spring" reform movement crushed by
a Warsaw Pact invasion in 1968, said he would accept the
presidency if nominated by the people, the Associated Press
reported.

Havel, a leading Czech playwright who has often expressed his

desire to pursue that career, said he would accept the presidency
only until the nation holds its first free elections since 1946. Prime
Minister Calfa said at a press conference today that he expected the
elections to be held before July.

Communist Party officials said today they prefer an election as soon

as possible to keep as much of their battered organization together
in the face of a sharp decline in public support.

Calfa said that before elections could be held, the Federal Assembly
must pass laws guaranteeing freedom of assembly, a free press and
other rights. Under laws still on the books, most of the democratic
activities conducted during the last three weeks are forbidden.

Miroslav Pavel, head of Czechoslovak television, is scheduled to

meet Monday with a special commission composed of party and civic
organizations to decide on the amount of broadcast time to be
allotted to competing political groups. The commission is aimed at
defusing criticism that Communists still control the state-run radio
and television networks, giving them an edge in the election.

As gratifying as today's results were to Civic Forum activists, a

student leader who addressed the crowd in Wenceslas Square
warned against apathy. Tonight, university students voted to
continue their strike even as Civic Forum called off a general strike
scheduled for Monday.

The students said they remained concerned about the lack of

progress in an investigation of a police attack on demonstrators at
Wenceslas Square Nov. 17, which sparked the unprecedented anti-
government demonstrations. They also reported that Communists
still were harassing student activists in several towns in eastern
Slovakia, and called on "compromised" members of the Communist
Central Committee to resign.

Calfa said today that any "criminal behavior" by police should result
in "these people" being "tried by an independent court and
punished."

He also acknowledged that there was not yet a final decision on the
future of the Interior Ministry, a principal source of repression and
Communist power in the past. Negotiations on this matter stalled the
announcement of the new government for a day.

For the time being, he said, the ministry would be run by a troika
consisting of himself and his two chief deputy prime ministers. One
of them, Carnogursky, would have direct authority over the
commission supervising the security police. Calfa said negotiators
decided it was "not suitable for the ministry to be in the hands of any
political party."

Calfa, when asked how he felt about working with Dienstbier, the
new foreign minister who went to jail for his political ideas, said: "My
feelings are of regret. I know this will not help Mr. Dienstbier at the
moment, but I think we will be able to cooperate together."

In addition to Dienstbier and Carnogursky, Miroslav Kusy, who will

head the sub-cabinet information department, has also been
imprisoned.