This election poster was created by cartoonist Marián Vanek for the Movement for Civic Freedom (Hnutí za obcanskou svobodu - HOS). The movement for Civic Freedom was number 4 on the list of political parties taking part in the June 1990 election that followed the ‘Velvet Revolution’ – the first democratic election in Czechoslovakia since 1946.

The Movement for Civic Freedom (Hnutí za obcanskou svobodu) was founded by Czech and Slovak followers of Charter 77 as an independent citizens´ initiative on October 15, 1988 when they published the manifesto ‘Democracy for Everyone’ (Demokracie pro všechny). The main representatives were: Rudolf Battek, Václav Benda, Ján Carnogurský, Tomáš Hradílek, Jirí Kanturek, Ladislav Lis, Anna Marvanová, Jaroslav Šabata, and Alexandr Vondra among others. Their demands were: a return to democratic tradition, political plurality, a new democratic constitution, a return to a fair legal system, protection of the environment, economic reforms without an oppressive communist bureaucracy as a means to economic prosperity, freedom of speech, religious freedom, liberty of the press and mass media, the abolition of censorship, free trade unions, the shortening of military service, respect for national minorities in Czechoslovakia, a democratic and equal relationship with the Soviet Union, overcoming Stalinist political residues and integration with democratic Europe.

Marián Vanek is awell known Slovak cartoonist, who published his political satirical cartoons during a short period between 1967 - 1968 as title page illustrations in the Slovak daily newspaper ‘Smena’ and in the magazine ‘Kultúrny život’. He worked together with cartoonist Dušan Junek. Their cartoons were banned in the process of ‘normalisation’ that followed the suppression of the ‘Prague Spring’ reforms in Czechoslovakia.

In this HOS election poster Marián Vanek makes a satirical joke on the old Leninist ideology, hidden as a genie (ghost) in a bottle of Russian vodka.

Designed, printed and published in former Czechoslovakia