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RFE/RL NEWSLINE Vol 2, No. 78, 23 April 1998

HUNGARIAN ETHNIC PARTIES MERGE IN SLOVAKIA. The three
political parties representing Hungarian ethnics (Co-
existence, the Christian Democratic Hungarian Movement, and
the Hungarian Civic Party) have reached an agreement to
merge to form a new party, Hungarian media reported on 22
April. Previously, the parties were joined in an alliance.
The merger to form a party comes after Prime Minister
Vladimir Meciar's Movement for a Democratic Slovakia
submitted a draft law that would raise the threshold for
parliamentary representation from the present 5 percent to 5
percent for each formation represented in an electoral
alliance, RFE/RL's Bratislava bureau reported. MS

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