Democratická strana
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The Demokratieická strana ( German Democratic Party ), abbreviated DS, was a political party in Slovakia in the years 1944–1948 and 1989–2006.
Period 1944-1948
The DS was created in September 1944 during the Slovak National Uprising from several groups of the resistance, including numerous Slovak supporters of the former strong agricultural party . It united many democratically oriented forces. In 1945 she became a member of the National Front and as such was allowed to participate in the parliamentary elections in Czechoslovakia in 1946 .
Shortly before these elections, their mostly Protestant leadership concluded an agreement with the representatives of the Slovak Catholics. As a result, the DS gained twice as many votes as the Slovak Communists of the KSS with 62 percent in the elections in the Slovak part of the state and became the election winner in Slovakia. Since it had only competed in the smaller of the two parts of the country, this made up only 14 percent of the votes in all of Czechoslovakia. The party then participated with four ministers in the Klement Gottwald I government .
In the following time she therefore came into conflict with the KSS. In autumn 1947 she was accused of attempting an overthrow, and in February 1948 her members resigned as ministers of the Klement Gottwald II government . After the Communists came to power , it was largely liquidated. Most of the members of the party chose to emigrate, the small remainder then became the Strana slovenskej obrody on March 24, 1948 , a party that continued as a so-called block party until November 1989.
Among the leading figures of the party were Jozef Lettrich , Ján Ursíny , Jozef Kempný and Miloš Bugár . The party published the daily Ľud.
Re-establishment after 1989
In December 1989 the DS was re-established and continued the traditions of the period 1944–1948. She participated in some Slovak governments. There were several spin-offs and mergers as well as some renaming. In 2006 the last merger of the DS took place, the new party is called Slovenská Demokratieická a kresťanská únia - Demokratická strana (SDKÚ-DS).
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- Democratická strana (DS) (Strana slovenské obrody) , in: Portal Totalita.cz, online at: totalita.cz / ...
- Karel Kaplan: The political processes in Czechoslovakia 1948-1953 , R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Munich 1986, here: Chapter I, The political processes and their function in the struggle for the monopoly of power 1945-1948, p. 11ff.