CZECHS ELECT COMMUNIST PRESIDENT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22664, 15 June 1948, Page 5

CZECHS ELECT COMMUNIST PRESIDENT

(N.Z.P.A.—Reutei— Copyright.) (10 a.m.) LONDON, June 14. Reuter’s correspondent in Prague says the National Assembly under the terms of Czechoslovakia’s new constitution elected M. Gottwald president of Czechoslovakia in succession to Dr. Benes. M Gottwald's nomination was the only one entered. M Gottwald was elected without. a dissenting voice by the 296 Deputies present. Artillery fired a 21-gun salute. M. Gottwald then went to the Cathedral where he attended Te Deum celebrated by the Catholic Archbishop of Prague, Dr. Josef Beran. A Communist, Dr. Gustav Husak, has been appointed chairman of the Slovak Board of Trustees following the approval of the Slovak National Front and Central Government. M. Gottwald, later, addressing crowds, said Czechoslovakia had a real democracy. “Now the workers are the bosses in the factories and the peasants own the land they till.” The Communist Party’s position was so decisive that violence was not needed to preserve victory, said M. Zapotocky, the new Premier, today. Only the party’s own mistakes or a wrong policy could endanger its influence, he said. “We have no cause to annihilate those who don’t agree with today’s regime.”

M. Zapotocky said that the Communist regime was not opposed in principle to Western culture or methods. They would take over the attributes that had proved advantageous and would oppose all that was reactionary, capitalistic or imperialistic.

The Communist regime did not make Parliamentary opposition impossible, but he did not agree that to secure democracy an opposition was inevitably necessary.

U.S. ENVOY'S FRIGID CONGRATULATIONS (11 a.m.) PRAGUE, June 14. The United States Ambassador, Mr. Laurence Steinhardt, as dean of the diplomatic corps, at a formal reception following M. Gottwald’s election as President, remarked that it was his “duty” to congratulate M. Gottwald. “We can only hope you will continue with the benevolence, justice, tolerance and magnanimity of your predecessor,” he added. M. Gottwald said he hoped for continued peace, “despite the social and political differences that divide the world.”