Jozef Lenárt

Infobox Prime Minister
name=Jozef Lenárt

order=18^th
office=Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia

term_start =20 September, 1963
term_end =8 April, 1968
predecessor =Viliam Široký
successor =Oldřich Černík

office2= Acting President of Czechoslovakia
term_start2 =22 March, 1968
term_end2 = 30 March, 1968
predecessor2 =Antonín Novotný
successor2 =Ludvík Svoboda

birth_date =birth date|1923|4|3
birth_place =Liptovská Porúbka, Czechoslovakia
death_date =death date and age|2004|12|11|1923|4|3
death_place =Prague, Czech Republic

Jozef Lenárt (3 April 1923 in Liptovská Porúbka, Slovakia – 11 February 2004 in Prague) was a Slovak politician.

He graduated from a chemistry high school and worked for the Baťa company. He became a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia ("KSČ") and of the Communist Party of Slovakia ("KSS").

Lenart was a member of the federal parliament (whose name changed several times) from 1960 to 1990, and was Speaker of the Slovak National Council 1962 - 1963. He was also a member from 1971 to (?)1990. He served as Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia between 1963 and 1968.

Although a Slovak, he became a Czech citizen after the country had split in 1993.

On the basis of insufficient evidence, on 23 September 2002 Lenárt was acquitted of treason charges (along with his co-defendant Miloš Jakeš), related to his handling (or lack thereof) of the Prague Spring events in 1968. He was accused of attending a meeting at the Soviet embassy in Prague on the day after the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, planning to establish a new "workers and farmers"' government.

Jozef Lenárt was one of the most resilient figures in Czechoslovakia's communist hierarchy, occupying one post or another in the leadership for no less than a quarter of the century. That achievement was all the more remarkable because his career at the top straddled a succession of regimes and several abrupt changes in policy.

Major functions

*1950 – 1953, 1957 – 1966, and 1970 – (?)1990: Member of the KSS
*1956 – 1958: Leading Secretary of the Regional Committee of the KSS
*1958 – 1962: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS
*1958 – (?)1990: Member of the Central Committee of the KSČ
*1962 – 1963: Chairman of the Slovak National Council
*1963 – 1968: Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia
*1968 – 1970: Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSČ
*1970 – 1987: First Secretary of the Central Committee of the KSS
*1970 – (?)1990: Member of the Presidium of the KSČ
*1971 – (?)1990: Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Slovak Socialist Republic, and Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the National Front of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic

ee also

* List of Prime Ministers of Czechoslovakia
* List of Presidents of Czechoslovakia