Democratic Breakthroughs and Revolutions in Five Post-Communist ...

15break down fear. Yanukovych proved to be a perfect candidate to implement thishumor strategy.United OppositionA united opposition showed voters that politicians could stand above narrowpersonal interests and unite around an election platform. The opposition had remaineddisunited and fractured throughout the 1990s in Slovakia, Croatia, Serbia, Georgiaand Ukraine. Only during the political crises on the eve of the democraticbreakthroughs did the opposition unite, often following pressure from youth NGO’s,civil society and, in the case of Slovakia and Croatia, with the assistance of the EU. Inauthoritarian regimes the democratic opposition is marginalised, imprisoned or inexile and therefore unable to offer a series challenge to the regime.The Slovakia Democratic Coalition united in 1997 around four maindemocratic parties and aligned with the OK’98 civic campaign that brought together35 NGO’s. The Slovaks focused on voter education, getting out the vote, candidateforums and election monitoring. The democratic opposition innovated ten strategiesthat were later diffused to other post-communist states. These included steps toovercome passivity and fear, being creative, using all possibilities afforded to you byindependent media, and influencing the public discourse. In Croatia, six oppositionparties met in September 1998 and they created two opposition coalitions to standagainst the HDZ. These two coalitions were backed by the large civic NGO coalitionGlas 99. Their strategy drew on the success of the Slovak OK’98 campaign.The Democratic Opposition of Serbia, DOS, united 19 parties and NGO’s whohad hitherto been severely fractured. DOS included a major fault line runningbetween Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, assassinated in March 2003, and President