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NEWS & LETTERS, May 2004Our Life and Times by Kevin A. BarryUnrest in SlovakiaIn April elections for the largely symbolic presidency, voters in Slovakia registered a protest against harsh "free market" economic policies by giving right-wing populist Vladimir Meciar a plurality in the first round, on April 3. In the 1990s, Meciar had ruled in an authoritarian fashion, putting forward a chauvinistic nationalism that targeted the West and the ethnic Hungarian minority. In the second round of voting on April 17, voters evidently had second thoughts about Meciar and they elected Ivan Gasparovic, a less demagogic critic of current economic policies. Voters are clearly worried about their economic future at a time when unemployment stands at 16%. One sign of this dissension came in February, when a revolt broke out in the East where most of the country’s 400,000-strong Roma minority lives. Overall, Roma constitute about 7% of the population. The revolt was a response to harsh cutbacks that reduced social welfare allotments by as much as 50%. This was done at the behest of international capital. With unemployment rates over 50% in some Roma communities, which face not only poverty but also racist barriers to the few available jobs, people reacted by looting food shops. Non-Roma working people also joined in. The government sent in 2,000 police and 1,000 soldiers to quell the revolt, but this has done nothing to alleviate its causes. |
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