Dr Václav Klaus succeeded Václav Havel as president in February 2003. A
member of the Civic Forum Movement and then the Civic Democratic Party,
he was Czechoslovakia's first minister of finance following the Velvet
Revolution of 1989. He was elected prime minister in 1992 and oversaw
the Czech Republic's transition from a state-planned economy to a free
market. His reforms led to economic growth unparalleled among any of
the other post-communist nations in the region. When in the late 1990s
the economy began to suffer, Klaus resigned in 1997 following a party
financing scandal.
