Civic Forum

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This article is about the Civic Forum of the Czech Republic. See also the Guinean Civic Forum of Guinea-Bissau.

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Civic Forum (Czech: Občanské fórum - OF) was a political party in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia set up during the Velvet Revolution in 1989. In Slovakia the corresponding movement was called Public Against Violence (Slovak: Verejnosť proti násiliu - VPN).

Its original purpose was to unify all anti-totalitarian forces and win the free elections in 1990, against the Communist Party, which it did getting some 80 percent of the votes. Civic Forum had a very loose structure and most of its (self-appointed) leaders came from Prague members of Charter 77. It didn't have a clear political strategy much beyond the elections.

Václav Havel was its leader until elected president on December 29, 1989. Jan Urban became the new Civic Forum chair, serving until June, 1990. He resigned his post, saying he did not want a rift between the organization and the president. Václav Klaus, on his way to obtain more political power, was elected its new chairman on October 16th, 1990. The policies of Klaus were opposed by other leaders and party unity soon vanished.

At the Civic Forum congress in January 1991 Klaus's supporters stated that they would form an independent party with a clearer program, advocating a free market, called Občanská demokratická strana (Civic Democratic Party). The party elected him as its chairman in February 1991. Klaus then stated that ODS and Civic Movement (Občanské hnutí), the party formed by the remainder of Civic Forum members, would rule as a coalition until the 1992 elections. However, by July 1991 Klaus said that the cooperation was over. Civic Democratic Party was victorious in the elections of 1992 while Civic Movement failed and eventually disappeared.