(left), his friend and later chief Czech rabbi during the interwar period. On 29 December 1989, while he was leader of the
Civic Forum, Havel became President of Czechoslovakia by a unanimous vote of the
Federal Assembly. He had long insisted that he was not interested in politics and had argued that political change in the country should be induced through autonomous civic initiatives rather than through the official institutions. In 1990, soon after his election, Havel was awarded the
Prize For Freedom of the
Liberal International. In 1990, Czechoslovakia held
its first free elections in 44 years, resulting in a sweeping victory for Civic Forum and its Slovak counterpart,
Public Against Violence. Between them, they commanded strong majorities in both houses of the legislature, and tallied the highest popular vote share recorded for a free election in the country. During his early presidency, Havel gave a number of interviews to foreign media, including to Voice of America correspondent
Jolyon Naegele, who had covered Czechoslovak dissident movements throughout the 1980s. Despite increasing political tensions between the Czechs and the Slovaks in 1992, Havel supported the retention of the
Czech and Slovak Federative Republic prior to the
dissolution of the country. Havel sought re-election in 1992. Although no other candidate filed, when the vote came on 3 July, he failed to get a majority due to a lack of support from Slovak deputies. The largest Czech political party, the
Civic Democratic Party, let it be known that it would not support any other candidate. After the Slovaks issued their Declaration of Independence, he resigned as president on 20 July, saying that he would not preside over the country's breakup. However, when the Czech Republic was created as one of two successor states, he stood for election as its first president on 26 January 1993, and won. Although he was nominally the new country's chief executive, the framers of the
Constitution of the Czech Republic intended to vest most of the real power in the prime minister. However, owing to his prestige, he still commanded great
moral authority, and the presidency acquired a greater role than the framers intended. For instance, largely due to his influence, the
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM), successor to the KSC's branch in the Czech Lands, was kept on the margins for most of his presidency. Havel suspected that the KSCM was still an unreformed Stalinist party. Havel's popularity abroad surpassed his popularity at home, and he was often the object of controversy and criticism. During his time in office, Havel stated that the expulsion of the indigenous
Sudeten German population after
World War II was immoral, causing a great controversy at home. He also extended general amnesty as one of his first acts as president, in an attempt to lessen the pressure in overcrowded prisons as well as to release political prisoners and persons who may have been falsely imprisoned during the Communist era. Havel felt that many of the decisions by the previous regime's courts should not be trusted, and that most of those in prison had not received fair trials. However, critics claimed that this amnesty led to a significant increase in the crime rate: the total number of crimes doubled, as did the number of murders. Several of the worst crimes in the history of the Czech criminology were committed by criminals released in this amnesty. Within four years of the
Velvet Revolution (and following another two amnesties declared by Havel), criminality had more than tripled since 1989. His close friend was
Ivan Medek, who became the chief of the president's office. In January 1996,
Olga Havlová, his wife of 32 years, died of cancer at 62. In December 1996, Havel who had been a
chain smoker for a long time, was diagnosed with
lung cancer. The disease reappeared two years later. He quit smoking. In 1997, he remarried, to actress
Dagmar Veškrnová. Havel was re-elected president in 1998. He had to undergo a
colostomy in
Innsbruck when his colon ruptured while he was on holiday in Austria. On 30 January 2003, Havel signed
The letter of the eight supporting planned
U.S. invasion of Iraq. Havel left office after his second term as Czech president ended on 2 February 2003.
Václav Klaus, one of his greatest political adversaries, was elected his successor as president on 28 February 2003.
Margaret Thatcher wrote of the two men in her foreign policy treatise , reserving the greater respect for Havel. Havel's dedication to democracy and his steadfast opposition to
communist ideology earned him admiration.{{Cite magazine ==Post-presidential career==