Jozef Tiso - Political Rise

Political Rise

Tiso became one of the leaders of the Slovak People's Party (otherwise known as the Ľudáks), which had been founded by Father Andrej Hlinka in 1913, while Austria-Hungary still ruled Slovakia. The party's interwar platform demanded the autonomy of Slovakia within a Czechoslovak framework. After 1925, the Ľudáks were the largest party in Slovakia. They were one of two explicitly Slovak parties in Slovakia, the others either representing national minorities or structuring themselves as Czechoslovak. Although Tiso seemed destined in the late 1920s to soon succeed Hlinka, he spent the 1930s instead competing for Hlinka's mantle with party radicals, most notably Karol Sidor. When Hlinka died in 1938, Tiso quickly consolidated his control of the party, becoming its undisputed chairman in fall 1939.

Tiso first ran for parliament in 1920. Although the electoral results from his district were bright spots in what was otherwise a disappointing election for the Ľudáks, the party did not reward him with a legislative seat. Tiso, however, easily claimed one in the 1925 election, which also resulted in a breakthrough victory for the party. Until 1938, he was a fixture in the Czechoslovak parliament in Prague. From 1927 to 1929, in a failed attempt to integrate the Ľudáks into the Czechoslovak polity, he also served as the Czechoslovak Minister of Health and Physical Education.