Milan Čič, who served as Slovakia’s first prime minster after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, has died. He was 80, and had been in hospital since the end of October, the SITA newswire reported.
Čič entered politics in 1961 as a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and between 1988 and 1989 served as justice minister under the communist regime. After the overthrow of the regime in November 1989 he became prime minister of Slovakia (which at the time was a federal unit of Czechoslovakia), a position he held from December 1989 until the first free elections in June 1990.
In 1990 Čič quit the Communist Party and joined Public Against Violence (VPN), but the following year he left it to join the recently established Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) of Vladimír Mečiar.
After Slovak independence in 1993 Čič became the first president of the Slovak Constitutional Court, where he served until 2000. In 2004 became head of the Office of the President, a position he held until his death.
Source: SITA
Compiled by Spectator staff from press reports
