Ladislav Adamec

Ladislav Adamec (born September 10, 1926 in Frenštát pod Radhoštěm , † April 14, 2007 in Prague , Czech Republic ) was a Czechoslovak politician . He was Prime Minister of his country from 1988 to 1989.

Life

The son of a miner was employed as a laborer until 1945. In 1946 he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ). By 1958 he was promoted to head of the sales department, was appointed secretary to the director of the plant in which he was employed, head of the management department and chairman of the district national committee.

The subsequent studies at the political university from 1958 to 1961 enabled him to continue his political career. For two years he was director of the plant in Frenštát, from 1960 chairman of the district planning committee and deputy chairman of the industry division. In 1966 he was appointed to the Central Committee of the KSČ.

Because he had held back politically during the Prague Spring , Adamec was elected to state functions as deputy chairman of the government of Czechoslovakia and as a member of the Czech National Council. In March 1987 he made the leap into the center of power: after the overthrow of Prime Minister Lubomír Štrougal in October 1988, when the communist regime fell more and more into disrepair, he was elected Prime Minister.

The economic reforms that he initiated followed on from the reforms introduced by Ota Šik twenty years earlier . Politically, however, he showed little willingness to compromise. He underlined his strict line by appointing the police officer František Kincl as Minister of the Interior. After the Velvet Revolution began in November 1989, he was ready to negotiate a change of direction. But his government, which he set up after a visit to Moscow and talks with Gorbachev , was not recognized by the people. On November 27, 1989, there was a general strike. Adamec resigned on December 7, 1989; his successor in this function was Marián Čalfa .

At the end of 1989 he was elected by the KSČ as the successor to General Secretary Karel Urbáneks in the role of chairman of the party, but was replaced in this role in 1990 by Jiří Svoboda . He was a member of the National Assembly as a member of the KSČ and the KSČM until the end of the federal parliament on December 31, 1992. After the collapse of Czechoslovakia, he withdrew from public and political life. In 1996 he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate .

Web links

• Ladislav Adamec in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)