By Yehuda Lahav. From the independent "Ha'areta" of Tel Aviv.

On the morning after the June 5 elections, Slovakia woke up with a strong feeling of disgust, like someone waking up with clear knowledge that he had irreparably smashed something but not knowing exactly what. There were no victory celebrations or parades that day after the elections, in either the Czech lands or Slovakia. A feeling of disgust was perfectly justified. As a result of the elections, Czechoslovakia turned into a country that can no longer be governed.

Vladimir Meciar, the leader of the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia, won the election. But Meciar's victory leaves him no opening for retreat. Whether he likes it or not, and despite all the many expected difficulties, he will march Slovakia to independence. Were his movements a bit weaker, Meciar could compromise. Now that he has the needed majority among Slovaks in the lower house of Parliament, he has no pretext to prevent any proposal that he opposes from failing. One could say that Meciar has "won against his will."

His movement's platform opposed most of what the Civic Democratic Party, which won in the Czech lands, and its leader, former Minister of Finance Vaclav Klaus, stand for: a federal government with the authority to run a unified economy and uncompromising economic reform true to the principles of U.S. economist Milton Friedman. Meciar had pledged to proclaim Slovak sovereignty and to approve a separate Slovak constitution.

But what the Czechs call the "money pipeline"--some $500 million a year to Slovakia--will continue to be necessary to postpone the economic blows that Slovakia will suffer after proclaiming independence [now scheduled for January 1, 1993], and Meciar knows it. Independent Slovakia can expect growing unemployment, higher inflation, and devaluation of the local currency. The party that will run Slovakia will have to absorb the fury and bitterness of the people and will no longer be able to put all the blame on "wicked Prague."

Other trouble is also brewing. Parts of Meciar's movement and its nationalist allies demand that relations with the Hungarian minority (about 11 percent of the population) should cool considerably, while the Hungarians have already announced that they will demand territorial autonomy in independent Slovakia. Moreover, independent Slovakia will be much more vulnerable that Czechoslovakia in the expected confrontation with Hungary if the Slovaks implement their plan to divert the Danube. But if Meciar scraps the plan to divert the Danube, he will run into a conflict with his nationalist allies.

This is the reason for Meciar's proposal to his Czech interlocutors to maintain a kind of "economic defense partnership." This is much too transparent. The Czechs understand that his intentions to force them to continue "an economic and defense umbrella" without any restriction on the Slovaks. [An economic union is being negotiated.]

If it is to be farewell, then let it be a sharp and quick farewell. Separate budgets for the two independent states will be prepared for 1993. The economic and defense partnership will continue only as part of the "dissolving federation." The curtain is coming down on Czechoslovakia.