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the time will be right. Unless the regime decides in due course to combine the top party position and the Presidency—a proposition that is widely considered as unlikely in view of Novotny's adverse record under this arrangement prior to 1968—the next President is likely to be a Czech assuming that Husak retains the top party slot. Some Czechoslovaks, however, foresee a time when Husak will be dispensable enough to be "kicked upstairs" into the Presidency.

Although filling the office of a chief of state in a Communist country is normally a matter of small significance, both the unusual prerogatives of the Czechoslovak Presidency and Svoboda's ill-health will give this question continuing political and constitutional significance. With this in mind, some reports have suggested that the regime will seek a constitutional amendment abolishing the Presidency and establishing a collective executive on the model of the U.S.S.R. and some other East European regimes. It is unlikely, however, that the Czechoslovaks would lightly abandon the traditional office of President of the Republic unless a major political impasse developed in the selection of Svoboda's successor.

(3) Cabinet — Under the federal system the powers of the cabinet (Council of Ministers) were to be sharply curtailed. Sole federal jurisdiction was to be limited to the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and National Defense. All others were supposed to be reorganized to serve as coordinating agencies between federal and national governments. Each such changed ministry would then be assigned a state secretary as a Czech or Slovak counterpart to the minister. The existing 21 ministries were to be reduced to seven, with the abolished ministries being replaced by seven federal committees, each with equal Czech and Slovak representation. Like the five reorganized ministries, the committees were to be responsive to their respective counterparts in the Czech and Slovak governments. These changes were short-lived, however. As part of Husak's program to decentralize economic planning, the cabinet system was again overhauled in December 1970. All federal committees were restructured into federal ministries, which now total 12. The old Ministry of Planning was replaced by a State Planning Commission, which is responsible for overall national planning. The office of state secretary, designed to give the Slovaks equal representation in the federal ministries, was also abolished. The names and the role of the federal ministries in early 1974 are given in Figure 4.

FIGURE 6. Czechoslovak Premier Lubomir Strougal (C)

All cabinet members, including the Premier are appointed by the President of the Republic; their tenure is subject to resignation or presidential recall. The present Premier, Lubomir Strougal (Figure 6), succeeded Oldrich Cernik in January 1970. The appointment of Strougal, then head of the powerful Czech Party Bureau and a potential rival to Husak, was engineered by Husak to strengthen his own position.

The federal cabinet at the beginning of 1974 consisted of a total of 24 members. In addition to the Premier, there were 8 deputy premiers, 12 heads of ministries, and 3 ministers heading cabinet-level central agencies (the People's Control Committee, the State Planning Commission, and the State Price Bureau).^[1] All 24 members belonged to the Communist Party.

b. Czech and Slovak national government

Under federalization, the governments of the individual Czech and Slovak Socialist Republics were organized parallel to the federal structure. Each of the two republics thus has its own Premier heading a cabinet which, in turn, directs the activities of local government organs, i.e., the national committees existing at the regional, district, and community levels within the respective republics.

The Czech and Slovak National Councils are the legislative organs representing the "national sovereignty and individuality" of the respective republics. While their legislative powers are limited to regional matters, the National Councils provide the individual republics with considerably more autonomy than they previously had. The councils are empowered to implement, at the national republic level, laws passed by the Federal Assembly and to

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1. For a current listing of cabinet posts and key governmental officials, consult Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments, published monthly by the Directorate of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency.