Civic Forum Občanské fórum
Chairman	Václav Klaus
Founder	Václav Havel
Founded	19 November 1989
Dissolved	23 February 1991 (11 May 1992)
Succeeded by	Civic Democratic Party Civic Movement
Headquarters	Prague,Czechoslovakia
Newspaper	Občanský deník
Ideology	Liberal democracy
Political position	Big tent
Politics of Czechoslovakia Political parties Elections

TheCivic Forum (Czech:Občanské fórum, OF) was a political movement in theCzech part ofCzechoslovakia, established during theVelvet Revolution in 1989. The corresponding movement inSlovakia was calledPublic Against Violence (Slovak:Verejnosť proti násiliu – VPN).

The Civic Forum's purpose was to unify the dissident forces in Czechoslovakia and to overthrow the Communist regime. In this, they succeeded when the Communists gave up power in November 1989 after only 10 days of protests. PlaywrightVáclav Havel, its leader and founder, was elected president on 29 December 1989. Although the Forum did not have a clear political strategy beyond the June 1990 elections, it campaigned successfully in March and April 1990 during the first free elections in Czechoslovakia since 1946. Those elections garnered Civic Forum 36 percent of the vote, the highest that a Czechoslovak party ever obtained in a free election. This netted it 68 seats in the Chamber of Deputies; combined with Public Against Violence's 19 seats, it commanded a strong majority.

The Civic Forum had a very loose structure, and most of its (self-appointed) leaders came fromPrague-based members of theCharter 77 dissident movement. In December 1989,Jan Urban became the Forum's chairman after Havel's election as president. Urban served until June 1990, when he resigned, stating he did not want a rift between the organization and the president. On 16 October 1990,Václav Klauswas elected its new chairman. Klaus's policies were opposed by other leading figures within the Forum and party unity soon vanished.

At the Civic Forum congress in January 1991, the movement divided. The more right wing members, led by Klaus, declared that they would form an independent party, theCivic Democratic Party (Občanská demokratická strana), with a clearer program advocating afree market. The party elected Klaus as its chairman in February 1991. The more centrist members of Civic Forum, led by federal minister of foreign affairsJiří Dienstbier, formed theCivic Movement (Občanské hnutí). Klaus stated that the two parties would rule as a coalition until the 1992 elections. However, by July 1991 Klaus declared the inter-party cooperation over. The Civic Democratic Party was victorious in the elections of 1992 while the Civic Movement failed to reach the 5% threshold to enter parliament and eventually disappeared.

• Interparliamentary Club of the Democratic Right - rightist wing in the party. It was led byVáclav Klaus. It transformed into theCivic Democratic Party.^[1][2][3][4]
• Liberal Club of the Civic Forum - centrist wing of the party. Opposition to Klaus. It transformed intoCivic Movement
• Social Democratic Club of Civic Forum -Social democratic wing led byRudolf Battěk. It becameAssociation of Social Democrats.^[5]

• Timothy Garton Ash,We the People: The Revolution of ’89, Witnessed in Warsaw, Budapest, Berlin and Prague (Cambridge 1990).
• Bernard Wheaton and Zdeněk Kavan,The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia, 1988-1991 (Boulder 1992).
• Paal Sigurd Hilde, "Slovak Nationalism and the Break-Up of Czechoslovakia."Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Jun., 1999): 647-665.

• Civic Forum
• Defunct political parties in the Czech Republic
• Liberal parties in the Czech Republic
• Political parties in Czechoslovakia
• Velvet Revolution
• Political parties established in 1989
• 1989 establishments in Czechoslovakia
• Anti-communist parties in the Czech Republic
• Political parties disestablished in 1991
• 1991 disestablishments in Czechoslovakia
• Centrist political parties in the Czech Republic
• Anti-communist parties

• CS1 Czech-language sources (cs)
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