Prague Expected to Unveil Cabinet : Czechoslovakia: The prime minister is trying to create what he has called a ‘government of national reconciliation.’

As further elements of Communist Party power began to crumble Saturday, Prime Minister Ladislav Adamec prepared to announce an interim coalition government today that could launch Czechoslovakia toward reform and free elections next year.

A news conference was called for this afternoon, apparently to announce the composition of the new Cabinet. Such an announcement would meet an opposition-set Sunday deadline.

Those who have either met with Adamec in recent days or were involved in efforts to put together the government described the 63-year-old Communist prime minister as working largely on his own, without aides or note-takers.

Diplomats and Czechoslovak sources believe that Adamec is attempting to draw together a group of technocrats and prominent personalities in what he has described as a “government of national reconciliation.”

His task has been complicated by the need to get not just the right individuals but to find a political mix acceptable to both the Communists and the opposition, as well as an ethnic mix that reflects the relative weight of Czechs and Slovaks in the population.

Despite the severity of their problems, observers believe that Communists will hold several key ministries. Two smaller, non-Communist parties that played minor roles in the old Communist-dominated government are also likely to be represented.

“He (Adamec) must satisfy a lot of interests yet assemble a group that can work together,” commented a Western diplomat. “It’s not an easy job.”

The opposition group Civic Forum has proposed no candidates from its own ranks and initially refused to even suggest the names of those it might like to see in the new government.

However, it is believed to have submitted some names for consideration in the past 72 hours.

Civic Forum had originally only wanted veto power over individuals who it believed were linked too closely with the 1968 Soviet-led invasion that crushed the Prague Spring reforms and installed the hard-line Communist regime that ruled virtually unchallenged until two weeks ago.

The opposition group’s only statement on the new government makeup has been that the interior minister should be a non-Communist civilian and the defense minister a civilian Communist.

The Interior Ministry is responsible for police and internal security matters. An army general, Milan Vaclavik, is currently minister of defense.

Civic Forum’s deadline of today reflects an opposition sense of urgency in moving the country toward free elections.

The opposition’s leading figure, dissident playwright Vaclav Havel, underscored this urgency again Saturday, declaring that any delay would work against “the entire society.”

“If we are to . . . avoid possible conflicts, then it is necessary for the government to act quickly and not only declare certain things but really implement them,” Havel said in an interview in the Communist Party newspaper Rude Pravo.

The official party organ’s decision to publish an interview with the country’s best-known political dissident is a measure of the speed and depth of the political change that has swept Czechoslovakia in the past two weeks.

In the interview, Havel said the opposition is not anti-Communist, and he urged party members to participate in Czechoslovakia’s political renewal.

His comments came as further elements of the party’s once-unchallenged grip on power began to slip away.

Just three days after the Czechoslovak National Assembly voted to abolish the party’s constitutional guarantee to a monopoly of political power, an important Communist constituency voted to establish a separate political party.

A national farmers convention in Prague, 72% of whose delegates were members of the Communist Party, voted Saturday to establish a new, separate political entity, the Czechoslovak Farmers Party, to represent their interests.

At the same time, control over the People’s Militia, long a key instrument of Communist power, was passing from the party to army control.

Prague Radio clarified the move in response to numerous calls from nervous citizens seeking information about unusual military activity.

The radio said the transfer of all militia weapons to army armories will be completed today.

The move had been initiated in connection with a party pledge not to use force to regain its control, the radio explained.

There were also signs the party might be headed for a possible split as its leadership published its draft “action program” in Rude Pravo. A rival, week-old group calling itself the Democratic Forum of Communists said it is setting up a national structure and would offer an alternative program at an extraordinary party congress.

The congress is scheduled for the end of January but is likely to be moved up by as much as a month in view of the rapid pace of political developments here.