A recent survey has revealed that 59 percent of Slovaks view the process of building democracy in the country following the fall of communism in 1989 as a success, an analyst with the Public Affairs Institute (IVO), Olga Gyárfasová, told a press conference on Monday, November 9, as reported by TASR. The poll was carried out in October 2009 in the Visegrad Four (V4) countries within a project called PASOS, which is supported by the International Visegrad Fund and the European Commission. Gyárfasová added that public opinion in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary on this matter tends to vary.
While a similar proportion of Czechs (63 percent) and Poles (62 percent) consider the building of democracy to be a success story, only one-third of Hungarians share this view.
“We've consulted this with our Hungarian colleagues, and obviously the current situation is reflected in this evaluation. People assess the changes (in 1989) according to how countries are getting along at the moment,” said Gyárfasová as quoted by TASR.
The citizens of V4 countries also differ when asked about what kind of changes were required following the demise of totalitarianism. Most Czechs and Poles said that substantial political and economic changes were needed, while less than half of people in Slovakia and Hungary were of the same opinion.
“In every society, views differ chiefly according to one's education. In general, the higher an education, the higher the support for changes,” said the analyst. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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