NATIONALIST POPULISM AND POST-COMMUNISM

Slovak Christian Democratic Movement (SKDH) Hungarian Civic Party (MPP-MOS)

3.05

2.29 Source: www.statistics.sk, also Pravda (June 11, 1992). 4.2.3. Media discourse (1992) This section is based on an insight into the media discourse, as presented by the Pravda daily. The dominant principle in the 1992 discourse was the national one, while the civic orientation was stressed much less intensively. This was mainly due to the ongoing disputes about power sharing in the federation and the continuing crystallisation of the political scene. Although the system of the political parties was far from stable, the most important political parties involved in the political discourse – HZDS, KDH and SNS – proved to be strong enough to succeed in the 1992 elections and became active actors in the Slovak political scene for many years. It can be argued that the political parties competed among themselves in order to make the voters decide on the most genuine custodian of the national identity, values and history. However, although the statements of the party leaders differed in their content and language, the goal was always the same – to strengthen the national principle and spread it among the population. From a methodological point of view, the importance of the context should be underlined. Even moderate expressions might become offensive when placed in a certain context. Another sign characterising the political discourse in 1992 was the polarisation of the domestic political scene. In particular, the HZDS and SNS government parties pursued a strict distinction between the friends and enemies of the Slovak national idea and statehood. The political leaders or their parties, who did not identify with the prevailing mainstream, were often accused of being “enemies” of the nation and the state, whose only aim was to destabilise the new Slovak state. The “friend” and “foe” dichotomy was also applied to the international scene, in order to identify the supporters and opponents of the young Slovak statehood. Obviously, the most frequently mentioned “foes” were the Hungarians and Czechs. As in the case of the Polish media discourse, the statements of the political stakeholders who played active part in the political discourse were divided in three groups: positive national self-presentation; economic nationalism; and ethnic prejudices and animosity toward others. On the level of positive self-presentation and values, the political leaders frequently highlighted the importance of the national idea, and the historical

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