Democratic Party (Slovakia)

Democratic Party Demokratická strana
Emblem of the Democratic Party (1944-1948)
Abbreviation	DS
Founded	September 1944 December 1989 (refoundation)
Dissolved	1948, 2006
Merged into	Party of Slovak Revival (1948)
Headquarters	Bratislava, Slovakia
Ideology	Conservatism Anti-fascism
Political position	Centre-right
Colours	Blue
Politics of Slovakia Political parties Elections Politics of Czechoslovakia Political parties Elections

The Democratic Party (Slovak: Demokratická strana) was the name of two political parties in Slovakia, one active between 1944 and 1948, and the other between 1989 and 2006.

The historical Democratic Party arose in 1944 during the Slovak National Uprising as a party for all non-Communist participants (i.e. the counterpart of the Communist Party of Slovakia). In the 1946 elections in Czechoslovakia, the party won as much as 62% of votes in Slovakia, but was liquidated in 1947-1948 by the Communists, who had a majority in the central government in Prague (because as opposed to Slovakia, it was the Communists who won the 1946 elections in the Czech lands). The rest of the party was transformed into the pseudo-party Party of Slovak Revival (Strana slovenskej obrody) within the see National Front (Czechoslovakia).

In December 1989, i.e. at the end of the Velvet Revolution, a new Democratic Party was created by transformation of the Party of Slovak Revival. When it was founded, it saw itself a continuation of the historical Democratic Party.

It won 7 seats out of 150 in the Slovak parliament (Slovak National Council) and no seats in the federal parliament in 1990, but no seats in any parliament in 1992.

In 1994, the party was "recreated" by a merge with the parties:

The new chairman of the party was P. Hagyari, and the vice-chairman was Ivan Mikloš, the finance minister of Slovakia in 2010 - 2012.

In the 1994 parliamentary election, the party run for parliamentary seats together with the Strana podnikateľov a živnostníkov (Party of Entrepreneurs and businessmen), but again won no seats. Hagyari was replaced by Ján Langoš, the former minister of the interior of Czechoslovakia, in 1995.