y Systems, pg. 332) which is particularly distressing since economic issues are the pre-eminent concern for most Czech voters. The elite structure has not only changed their attitude towards the voters, but it seems as though it is fueling the citizens' apolitical values. The dissident movement that re-structured the government after the Velvet Revolution was staunchly apolitical in its view, and the constitution that they created reflected that perspective. Vaclav Havel, the founding member of Charter 77, stringently opposed political parties and chose not to deal with actual policies, but instead saw it as his duty to restore "moral dignity" (find quote) to the government of Czechoslovakia. The dissident intellectuals who led the revolution were subject to the same apolitical values that now plague the Czech population. The citizens have further reason to be dissillusioned with the public sphere, as Thomas Baylis points out, "as time passed and the problems and perceived injustices of the post-communist present began to overshdow or alter memories of the communist past, the value of strong anticommunist credentials in elite recruitment rapidly diminished."6 East European Politics and Societies, spring 1998 v12 n2 p265, Thoomas Baylis "Elite change after communism, eastern germany, the czech republic, and slovakia" Thus, according to Baylis, "the legacy of communist rule has by no means disappeared in either the social or the economic realm." The Leninist legacy is exacerbated by the old Communist elite's staying power in the political world. Even though lustration laws have been in place in the Czech Republic since 1992 (although the current revision of the law is not expected to be signed into law by Havel), a number of former Communists have managed to come to power, including two ecvonomics ministers, and two defense ministers. One of Havel's advisors even resigned his office due to suspected ties to the StB, the Czech ...
