RADIO FREE EUROPE/RADIO LIBERTY, PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC
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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol. 2, No. 141, 24 July 1998

EIGHTEEN PARTIES TO COMPETE IN SLOVAK ELECTIONS. Interior
Ministry official Jan Liska told Reuters on 23 July that 18
parties have registered to run in the 25-26 September general
elections and that the ministry is now checking whether all
parties and candidates fulfill the legal provisions to run.
The election campaign starts officially on 26 August. Polls
give only six parties a realistic chance of crossing the 5
percent threshold necessary for parliamentary representation.
Those parties include are Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a
Democratic Slovakia and its coalition party, the Slovak
National Party. Four opposition parties--the Slovak
Democratic Coalition, the Party of Civic Understanding, the
Democratic Left, and the Hungarian Coalition Party--are also
likely to gain representation. MS

HUNGARY ANNULS SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT'S DECISION ON DAM. The
cabinet headed by Viktor Orban on 23 July annulled a decision
by Gyula Horn's government to go ahead with the construction
of the controversial Gabcikovo-Nagymaros dam, Reuters
reported. It said the decision of the former cabinet, taken
in the wake of the ruling of the International Court of
Justice in The Hague in September 1997, forced the country
into an uneconomical "prestige project" that was also a "huge
environmental risk." The statement said the new government
wants to "do everything" to reach an agreement with Slovakia
and to "uphold Hungary's legal obligations" in line with the
decision of the court. But it stressed that Hungary will do
so only after carrying out studies on environmental effects.
MS

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