Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/247

The first National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic, selected by the leaders of the revolution which overthrew the Austrian rule, completed its labors on April 15, almost on the eve of the first parliamentary elections in the new Republic. The revolutionary legislature consisted of one chamber; the constitution adopted by this National Assembly provided for a parliament of two chambers. On April 18 elections were held for the chamber of deputies, by far the more, important of the two; on April 25 elections were held for the senate.

As is customary on the continent of Europe, election day is always Sunday. This seems quite startling to our American ideas, but the fact is that the election Sunday was far more quiet than ordinary Sundays. All drinking places were closed on election day, as well as on the following day—with the idea that people should not spend the “blue Monday” in celebrating or discussing the result. From one corner of the Republic to the other no complaint came of disorders. The preelection campaign, especially in the newspapers, was in many cases bitter, but the people took it good-naturedly. There were posters everywhere, knots of people standing on corners, cabs bringing old women to the polls, impromptu processions in the evening, after the polls closed. In fact the elections looked very much as they would in the United States. No party complained of intimidation, and in Košice, for instance, Magyar newspapermen came to the district chief after the elections and congratulated him on the good order that prevailed, stating that after all their experience of elections under Hungarian rule the election under the Czechoslovaks was the first one without violence and without bloodshed.

While the Czechoslovak parliamentary elections had so much in common with let us say congressional elections in the United States, there were also many points of dissimilarity. For one thing Czechoslovakia has put the women on an equality with men, something that America has not done up to this time. For another thing voting is made compulsory by law, and so everybody over 21 years of age voted—or almost everybody; for there must have been some who neglected this duty, as after the election the government announced that it was going to prosecute all those who failed to vote. The population of the Republic is estimated at 13 to 14 million; a census at the end of this year will ascertain the exact figures. The number of votes cast for deputies was 6,198,148, about a third as many as are cast at the election for president of the United States.

But what would have surprised an American most about the Czechoslovak elections was the number of parties that put forward candidates. Their total number was 22. In reality the situation is not as complicated as this number of parties would indicate. In the first place one must remember that according to the Czechoslovak election law a voter votes for parties and not for the men. The entire Republic is divided for electoral purposes into 21 districts for the election of deputies and 11 districts for the election of senators. The total number of deputies to be elected is 300, total number of senators 150. The largest electoral district is Prague which elects 45 deputies; the other districts for the election of chamber are: Pardubice 11 deputies, Hradec Králové 12, Mladá Boleslav 17, Česká Lípa 13, Louny 17, Karlovy Vary (Karlsbad) 12, Plzeň 17, Budějovice 13, Jihlava 9, Brno 16, Olomouc 17, Uherské Hradiště 8, Moravská