Like the other elections of the Communist era, the result was a foregone conclusion. People were afraid not to vote, and when they did so, those who entered a voting booth to modify their ballot paper could expect to be persecuted by the state.[3]
Following the Velvet Revolution of November 1989 that overthrew the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, the Federal Assembly passed a new law empowering itself to fill vacant seats through co-option. This was used to elect members of newly formed democratic parties and organizations in place of resigning hardline Communists and other supporters of the old regime, ahead of the free elections scheduled for June 1990. The process took place in three waves, on 28 December 1989, 30 January 1990 and then 27 February 1990. The process mirrored the removal of reform Communists from the Assembly in favor of hardline ones in 1969 after the crushing of the Prague Spring. Its main architect Zdeněk Jičínský, a former dissident and Prague Spring figure who had himself been a victim of such co-optation, likely intended it as retribution.[6]
