Ion Iliescu
Encyclopedia
Ion Iliescu served as President of Romania
from 1990 until 1996, and from 2000 until 2004. From 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 until his retirement in 2008, Iliescu was a Senator
for the Social Democratic Party
(PSD), whose honorary president he remains.
He joined the Communist Party in 1953 and became a member of its Central Committee in 1965, however beginning with 1971 he was gradually marginalized by Nicolae Ceauşescu
. He had a leading role in the Revolution of 1989
, being elected as Romania's first post-communist president in 1990. After a new Constitution was approved by popular referendum, he served a further two terms as president, 1992 to 1996, and 2000 to 2004, separated by the presidency of Emil Constantinescu
.
Iliescu is widely recognized as a predominant figure in the first fifteen years of post-1989 Romanian Revolution politics. During his terms Romanian politics stabilized, and Romania joined NATO.
views during the period in which the Romanian Communist Party
was banned by the authorities. In 1931, he went to the Soviet Union
to take part in the Communist Party
Congress of Gorikovo, near Moscow
. He remained in the USSR for the next four years and was arrested upon his return. He was imprisoned from June 1940 to August 1944 and died in August 1945. During his time in the Soviet Union, Alexandru Iliescu divorced and married Mariţa, a chambermaid.
Iliescu married Nina Şerbănescu in 1951; they have no children, not by choice but because they couldn't, as Nina had three miscarriage
s.
Born in Olteniţa
, Iliescu studied fluid mechanics
at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute and then as a foreign student at the Energy Institute of the Moscow University. During his stay in Moscow, he was the secretary of the "Association of Romanian Students" it is alleged that he knew Mikhail Gorbachev
, although Iliescu always denied this. President Nicolae Ceauşescu
, however, probably believed a connection between the two existed, since during Gorbachev's visit to Romania in July 1989, Iliescu was sent outside of Bucharest to prevent any contact.
He joined the Union of Communist Youth
in 1944 and the Communist Party in 1953 and made a career in the Communist nomenklatura
, becoming a secretary of the Central Committee
of the Union of Communist Youth in 1956 and a member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party
in 1965. At one point, he served as the head of the Central Committee's Department of Propaganda. Iliescu later served as Minister for Youth-related Issues between 1967 and 1971.
However, in 1971, Ceauşescu felt threatened by Iliescu - as he was seen as Ceauşescu's heir apparent - and he was marginalized by and removed from all major political offices, being assigned vice-president of the Timiş County
Council (1971–1974), and later president of the Iaşi
Council (1974–1979). In 1984, he was excluded from the Central Committee, and until 1989 he was in charge of Editura Tehnică publishing house. For most of the 1980s (if not before), he was tailed by the Securitate
(secret police), as he was known to oppose Ceauşescu's harsh rule.
. After Ceauşescu was overthrown on 22 December (he was executed on Christmas Day), the political vacuum was filed by an organization named National Salvation Front (FSN: Frontul Salvării Naţionale), formed spontaneously by second-rank communist party members opposed to the policies of Ceauşescu and non-affiliated participants in the revolt. Iliescu was quickly acknowledged as the leader of the organization and therefore of the provisional authority. He'd first learned of the revolution when he noticed the Securitate was no longer tailing him.
Iliescu proposed multi-party elections and an "original democracy". This is widely held to have meant the adoption of Perestroika
-style reforms rather than the complete removal of existing institutions; it can be linked to the warm reception the new regime was given by Mikhail Gorbachev and the rest of the Soviet leadership, and the fact that the first post-revolutionary international agreement signed by Romania was with that country.
Iliescu did not renounce the communist ideology and the program he initially presented during the revolution included restructuring the agriculture and the reorganization of trade, but not a switch to capitalism. These views were held by other members of the FSN, such as Silviu Brucan
, who claimed in early 1990 that the revolution was against Ceauşescu, not against communism. Iliescu later evoked the possibility of trying a "Swedish
model" of socialism.
Rumours abounded for years that Illiescu and other second-rank Communists had been planning to overthrow Ceauşescu, but the events of December 1989 overtook them. For instance, Nicolae Militaru, the new regime's first defense minister, said that Illiescu and others had planned to take Ceauşescu prisoner in February 1990 while he was out of the capital. However, Illiescu denies this, saying that the nature of the Ceauşescu regime made it all but impossible to make the serious plans necessary to launch a pre-planned coup.
Iliescu and his supporters split from the Front and created the NSDF (National Salvation Democratic Front), which later evolved into the Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR), then the Social Democratic Party (PSD) (see Social Democratic Party of Romania). Progressively, the Front lost its character as a national government
or generic coalition, and became vulnerable to criticism for using its appeal as the first institution involved in power sharing, while engaging itself in political battles with forces that could not enjoy this status, nor the credibility.
Under the pressure of the events that led to the Mineriad
s, his political stance has veered with time: from a proponent of the Perestroika, Iliescu adopted a social democratic
position, aligning himself with the Western European political spectrum. The main debate around the subject of his commitment to such ideals is linked to the special conditions in Romania, and especially to the strong nationalist
and autarkic attitude visible within the Ceauşescu regime. Critics have pointed out that, unlike most communist-to-social democrat changes in the Eastern bloc
, Romania's tended to retain various cornerstones .
The new Constitution was adopted in 1991, and in 1992 he won a second term when he received 61% of the vote. According to Romanian political analysts such as Daniel Barbu
or Dan Pavel
, his election was based almost exclusively on the rural population and disoriented lower class industrial workers, controlled through manipulation from the state-controlled media (Televiziunea Română
, the state television, was the only wide-scale TV channel until 1993). He ran for a third time in 1996 but, stripped of media monopoly, that of virtually all urban citizens and even of some traditional votes, he lost to Emil Constantinescu
. Over 1,000,000 votes were cancelled, leading to accusations of widespread fraud.
In the 2000 presidential election Iliescu ran again and won in the run-off against the ultra-nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor
. He began his third term on December 20 of that year, ending on 20 December 2004. The center-right was severely defeated during the 2000 elections due largely to public dissatisfaction with the harsh economic reforms of the previous four years as well as the political instability and infighting of the multiparty coalition. Tudor's extreme views also ensured that most urban voters either abstained or chose Iliescu.
In the PSD elections of 21 April 2005, Iliescu lost the Party presidency to Mircea Geoană
, but was elected as honorary president of the party in 2006, a position without official executive authority in the party.
, the allegations continued during 2003-2008, when Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky
, who had been granted access to Soviet archives, declared that Iliescu and some of the NSF members were KGB agents, that Iliescu had been in close connection with Mikhail Gorbachev ever since they had allegedly met during Iliescu's stay in Moscow, and that the Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a plot organized by the KGB to regain control of the country's policies (gradually lost under Ceauşescu's rule). The only hard evidence published was a discussion between Gorbachev and Bulgaria's Aleksandar Lilov from May 23, 1990 (after Iliescu's victory in the May 20 elections) in which Gorbachev says that Iliescu holds a "calculated position", and that despite sharing common views with Iliescu, Gorbachev wanted to avoid sharing this impression with the public.
miners to Bucharest on 28 January and June 14, 1990 to end the protests of the citizens gathered in University Square, Bucharest
, protests aimed against the ex-communist leaders of Romania. The pejorative term used to describe this demonstration was the Golaniad
(from the Romanian
golan, rascal). On June 13, an attempt of the authorities to remove from the square around 100 protesters, which had remained in the street even after the May elections
had confirmed Iliescu and the FSN, resulted in attacks against several state institutions, such as the Ministry of Interior, the Bucharest Police Headquarters and the National Television. Iliescu issued a call to the Romanian people to come and defend the government, prompting several group of miners to descend on the capital, armed with wooden clubs and bats. They trashed the University of Bucharest
, some newspaper offices and the headquarters of opposition parties, claiming that they were havens of decadence and immorality - drugs, firearms and munitions, "an automatic typewriter", and fake currency. The June 1990 Mineriad
in particular was widely criticized both at home and internationally, with one historian (Andrei Pippidi) comparing the events to Nazi Germany's Kristallnacht
. Government inquiries later established that the miners were infiltrated and instigated by former Securitate
operatives. In February 1994 a Bucharest court "found two security officers, Colonel Ion. Nicolae and warrant officer Corneliu Dumitrescu, guilty of ransacking the house of Ion Raţiu
, a leading figure in the National Peasant Christian Democratic Party, during the miners’ incursion, and stealing $100,000."
ed three inmates convicted for bribery
, including George Tănase, former Financial Guard head commissioner for Ialomiţa
. Iliescu had to revoke Tănase's pardon a few days later due to the media outcry, claiming that "a legal adviser was superficial in analyzing the case". Later, the humanitarian reasons invoked in the pardon were contradicted by another medical expert opinion. Another controversial pardon was that of Dan Tartagă—a businessman from Braşov
that, while drunk, had run over and killed two people on a pedestrian crossing. He was sentenced to three years and a half but was pardoned after only a couple of months. Tartagă was later sentenced to a two-year sentence for fraud
.
Most controversial of all, on 15 December 2004, a few days before the end of his last term, Iliescu pardon
ed 47 convicts, including Miron Cozma
, the leader of the miners during the early 1990s, who had been sentenced in 1999 to 18 years in prison in conjunction with the 1991 Mineriad. This has attracted harsh criticism from all Romanian media.
Many of the pardoned had been convicted for corruption or other economic crimes, while one had been imprisoned for his involvement in the attempts at suppressing the 1989 Revolution.
, a gesture which drew criticism in the press and prompted Nobel Peace Prize
winner Elie Wiesel
, fifteen Radio Free Europe
journalists, Timişoara
mayor Gheorghe Ciuhandu
, song writer Alexandru Andrieş, and historian Randolph Braham to return their Romanian honours in protest. The leader of Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, Béla Markó
, did not show up to claim the award he received on the same occasion. The current president, Traian Băsescu, revoked the award granted to Tudor on May 24, 2007, but a lawsuit is ongoing even after Băsescu's decree was declared constitutional.
investigator into illegal activities of the CIA
in Europe, Dick Marty
. He is pointed out as one of the people who authorized or at least knew about and have to stand accountable for torture prisons
at Mihail Kogălniceanu
airbase from 2003 to 2005.
for his contributions to development of Azerbaijan-Romania relations and strategic cooperation between the states by President of Azerbaijan
Ilham Aliyev
on October 6, 2004.
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
from 1990 until 1996, and from 2000 until 2004. From 1996 to 2000 and from 2004 until his retirement in 2008, Iliescu was a Senator
Senate of Romania
The Senate of Romania is the upper house in the bicameral Parliament of Romania. It has 137 seats , to which members are elected by direct popular vote, using Mixed member proportional representation in 42 electoral districts , to serve four-year terms.-Former location:After the Romanian...
for the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...
(PSD), whose honorary president he remains.
He joined the Communist Party in 1953 and became a member of its Central Committee in 1965, however beginning with 1971 he was gradually marginalized by Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
. He had a leading role in the Revolution of 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, being elected as Romania's first post-communist president in 1990. After a new Constitution was approved by popular referendum, he served a further two terms as president, 1992 to 1996, and 2000 to 2004, separated by the presidency of Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu was President of Romania from 1996 to 2000.He graduated from the law school of the University of Bucharest, and subsequently started a career as a geologist...
.
Iliescu is widely recognized as a predominant figure in the first fifteen years of post-1989 Romanian Revolution politics. During his terms Romanian politics stabilized, and Romania joined NATO.
Family background
Iliescu's father, Alexandru Iliescu, was a railroad worker with CommunistCommunism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
views during the period in which the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
was banned by the authorities. In 1931, he went to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
to take part in the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
Congress of Gorikovo, near Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. He remained in the USSR for the next four years and was arrested upon his return. He was imprisoned from June 1940 to August 1944 and died in August 1945. During his time in the Soviet Union, Alexandru Iliescu divorced and married Mariţa, a chambermaid.
Early life
Miscarriage
Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
s.
Born in Olteniţa
Oltenita
Olteniţa is a city in Romania in the Călăraşi County on the left bank of the Argeş River where its waters reach the Danube through a network of streams and marshes.Oltenita stands just across the Danube from the Bulgarian city of Tutrakan.-History:...
, Iliescu studied fluid mechanics
Fluid mechanics
Fluid mechanics is the study of fluids and the forces on them. Fluid mechanics can be divided into fluid statics, the study of fluids at rest; fluid kinematics, the study of fluids in motion; and fluid dynamics, the study of the effect of forces on fluid motion...
at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute and then as a foreign student at the Energy Institute of the Moscow University. During his stay in Moscow, he was the secretary of the "Association of Romanian Students" it is alleged that he knew Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a former Soviet statesman, having served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991, and as the last head of state of the USSR, having served from 1988 until its dissolution in 1991...
, although Iliescu always denied this. President Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, however, probably believed a connection between the two existed, since during Gorbachev's visit to Romania in July 1989, Iliescu was sent outside of Bucharest to prevent any contact.
He joined the Union of Communist Youth
Union of Communist Youth
The Union of Communist Youth was the Romanian Communist Party's youth organisation, modelled after the Soviet Komsomol. It aimed to cultivate young cadres into the party, as well as to help create the "new man" envisioned by communist ideologues.-History:Founded in 1922, the UTC went underground...
in 1944 and the Communist Party in 1953 and made a career in the Communist nomenklatura
Nomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
, becoming a secretary of the Central Committee
Central Committee
Central Committee was the common designation of a standing administrative body of communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, whether ruling or non-ruling in the twentieth century and of the surviving, mostly Trotskyist, states in the early twenty first. In such party organizations the...
of the Union of Communist Youth in 1956 and a member of the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party
Romanian Communist Party
The Romanian Communist Party was a communist political party in Romania. Successor to the Bolshevik wing of the Socialist Party of Romania, it gave ideological endorsement to communist revolution and the disestablishment of Greater Romania. The PCR was a minor and illegal grouping for much of the...
in 1965. At one point, he served as the head of the Central Committee's Department of Propaganda. Iliescu later served as Minister for Youth-related Issues between 1967 and 1971.
However, in 1971, Ceauşescu felt threatened by Iliescu - as he was seen as Ceauşescu's heir apparent - and he was marginalized by and removed from all major political offices, being assigned vice-president of the Timiş County
Timis County
Timiș , , Banat Bulgarian: ) is a county of western Romania, in the historical region Banat, with the county seat at Timișoara. It is the largest county in Romania in terms of land area....
Council (1971–1974), and later president of the Iaşi
Iasi County
Iași is a county of Romania, in Moldavia, with the administrative seat at Iași.-Demographics:As of 1 July 2007, Iași County had a population of 825,100, making it the second most populous county in Romania after Bucharest, with a population density of 150/km².*Romanians - 98.1%*Roma -...
Council (1974–1979). In 1984, he was excluded from the Central Committee, and until 1989 he was in charge of Editura Tehnică publishing house. For most of the 1980s (if not before), he was tailed by the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
(secret police), as he was known to oppose Ceauşescu's harsh rule.
1989 Revolution
The 1989 Romanian Revolution began as a popular revolt in TimişoaraTimisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
. After Ceauşescu was overthrown on 22 December (he was executed on Christmas Day), the political vacuum was filed by an organization named National Salvation Front (FSN: Frontul Salvării Naţionale), formed spontaneously by second-rank communist party members opposed to the policies of Ceauşescu and non-affiliated participants in the revolt. Iliescu was quickly acknowledged as the leader of the organization and therefore of the provisional authority. He'd first learned of the revolution when he noticed the Securitate was no longer tailing him.
Iliescu proposed multi-party elections and an "original democracy". This is widely held to have meant the adoption of Perestroika
Perestroika
Perestroika was a political movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during 1980s, widely associated with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev...
-style reforms rather than the complete removal of existing institutions; it can be linked to the warm reception the new regime was given by Mikhail Gorbachev and the rest of the Soviet leadership, and the fact that the first post-revolutionary international agreement signed by Romania was with that country.
Iliescu did not renounce the communist ideology and the program he initially presented during the revolution included restructuring the agriculture and the reorganization of trade, but not a switch to capitalism. These views were held by other members of the FSN, such as Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan
Silviu Brucan was a Romanian communist politician. Though he disagreed with Nicolae Ceauşescu's policies, he never gave up his communist beliefs and did not oppose communist ideology...
, who claimed in early 1990 that the revolution was against Ceauşescu, not against communism. Iliescu later evoked the possibility of trying a "Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
model" of socialism.
Rumours abounded for years that Illiescu and other second-rank Communists had been planning to overthrow Ceauşescu, but the events of December 1989 overtook them. For instance, Nicolae Militaru, the new regime's first defense minister, said that Illiescu and others had planned to take Ceauşescu prisoner in February 1990 while he was out of the capital. However, Illiescu denies this, saying that the nature of the Ceauşescu regime made it all but impossible to make the serious plans necessary to launch a pre-planned coup.
After the 1989 Revolution
The National Salvation Front decided to run in the free legislative elections of 20 May 1990, winning over 70% of the votes.Iliescu and his supporters split from the Front and created the NSDF (National Salvation Democratic Front), which later evolved into the Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR), then the Social Democratic Party (PSD) (see Social Democratic Party of Romania). Progressively, the Front lost its character as a national government
Central government
A central government also known as a national government, union government and in federal states, the federal government, is the government at the level of the nation-state. The structure of central governments varies from institution to institution...
or generic coalition, and became vulnerable to criticism for using its appeal as the first institution involved in power sharing, while engaging itself in political battles with forces that could not enjoy this status, nor the credibility.
Under the pressure of the events that led to the Mineriad
Mineriad
See also The 1990s: the rise and decline of miners' unionsA Mineriad is the term used to name any of the successive violent interventions of miners in Bucharest. These interventions were generally seen as aimed at wrestling policy changes or simply material advantages from the current political...
s, his political stance has veered with time: from a proponent of the Perestroika, Iliescu adopted a social democratic
Social democracy
Social democracy is a political ideology of the center-left on the political spectrum. Social democracy is officially a form of evolutionary reformist socialism. It supports class collaboration as the course to achieve socialism...
position, aligning himself with the Western European political spectrum. The main debate around the subject of his commitment to such ideals is linked to the special conditions in Romania, and especially to the strong nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and autarkic attitude visible within the Ceauşescu regime. Critics have pointed out that, unlike most communist-to-social democrat changes in the Eastern bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...
, Romania's tended to retain various cornerstones .
Daniel Barbu
Daniel Barbu is a Romanian political scientist, publisher, essayist, journalist, and professor at the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Political Science. The head of the Research Institute at the University of Bucharest, and former dean of the Faculty, he was also director of Realitatea...
or Dan Pavel
Dan Pavel
Dan Pavel is a Romanian political scientist, academic, politician, journalist and 1989 revolutionary. He was a consultant to Gigi Becali in 2003.-References:...
, his election was based almost exclusively on the rural population and disoriented lower class industrial workers, controlled through manipulation from the state-controlled media (Televiziunea Română
Televiziunea Româna
Televiziunea Română , more commonly referred to as TVR , is the short name for Societatea Românǎ de Televiziune ; acronym: SRTV. SRTV is the national state-owned public service television broadcaster of Romania...
, the state television, was the only wide-scale TV channel until 1993). He ran for a third time in 1996 but, stripped of media monopoly, that of virtually all urban citizens and even of some traditional votes, he lost to Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu
Emil Constantinescu was President of Romania from 1996 to 2000.He graduated from the law school of the University of Bucharest, and subsequently started a career as a geologist...
. Over 1,000,000 votes were cancelled, leading to accusations of widespread fraud.
In the 2000 presidential election Iliescu ran again and won in the run-off against the ultra-nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Corneliu Vadim Tudor
Corneliu Vadim Tudor is leader of the Greater Romania Party , writer, journalist and a Member of the European Parliament...
. He began his third term on December 20 of that year, ending on 20 December 2004. The center-right was severely defeated during the 2000 elections due largely to public dissatisfaction with the harsh economic reforms of the previous four years as well as the political instability and infighting of the multiparty coalition. Tudor's extreme views also ensured that most urban voters either abstained or chose Iliescu.
In the PSD elections of 21 April 2005, Iliescu lost the Party presidency to Mircea Geoană
Mircea Geoana
Dan Mircea Geoană is a Romanian politician, who served as president of the upper chamber of the Romanian Parliament, the Senate from December 20, 2008 until he was revoked by the senators on November 23, 2011. From 21 April 2005 until 21 February 2010 he was the head of the Partidul Social...
, but was elected as honorary president of the party in 2006, a position without official executive authority in the party.
Controversies
Though enjoying a certain popularity due to his opposition to Ceauşescu and image as a revolutionary, his political career after 1989 was characterized by multiple controversies and scandals. Public opinion regarding his tenure as president is still divided.Alleged KGB connections
Some alleged he had connections to the KGBKGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
, the allegations continued during 2003-2008, when Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Bukovsky
Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky is a leading member of the dissident movement of the 1960s and 1970s, writer, neurophysiologist, and political activist....
, who had been granted access to Soviet archives, declared that Iliescu and some of the NSF members were KGB agents, that Iliescu had been in close connection with Mikhail Gorbachev ever since they had allegedly met during Iliescu's stay in Moscow, and that the Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a plot organized by the KGB to regain control of the country's policies (gradually lost under Ceauşescu's rule). The only hard evidence published was a discussion between Gorbachev and Bulgaria's Aleksandar Lilov from May 23, 1990 (after Iliescu's victory in the May 20 elections) in which Gorbachev says that Iliescu holds a "calculated position", and that despite sharing common views with Iliescu, Gorbachev wanted to avoid sharing this impression with the public.
Mineriads
He, along with other figures in the leading FSN, was allegedly responsible for calling the Jiu ValleyJiu Valley
The Jiu Valley is a region in southwestern Romania, in Hunedoara county, situated in a valley of the Jiu River between the Retezat Mountains and the Parâng Mountains...
miners to Bucharest on 28 January and June 14, 1990 to end the protests of the citizens gathered in University Square, Bucharest
University Square, Bucharest
University Square is located in downtown Bucharest, near the University of Bucharest.Four statues are located in the University Square, in front of the University; they depict Ion Heliade Rădulescu , Michael the Brave , Gheorghe Lazăr and Spiru Haret .The square was the site of the 1990 Golaniad,...
, protests aimed against the ex-communist leaders of Romania. The pejorative term used to describe this demonstration was the Golaniad
Golaniad
The Golaniad was a protest in Romania in the University Square, Bucharest. It was initiated by students and professors at the University of Bucharest....
(from the Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
golan, rascal). On June 13, an attempt of the authorities to remove from the square around 100 protesters, which had remained in the street even after the May elections
Romanian presidential election, 1990
These are the results of the Romanian presidential election of May 20, 1990:-Results:...
had confirmed Iliescu and the FSN, resulted in attacks against several state institutions, such as the Ministry of Interior, the Bucharest Police Headquarters and the National Television. Iliescu issued a call to the Romanian people to come and defend the government, prompting several group of miners to descend on the capital, armed with wooden clubs and bats. They trashed the University of Bucharest
University of Bucharest
The University of Bucharest , in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.-Presentation:...
, some newspaper offices and the headquarters of opposition parties, claiming that they were havens of decadence and immorality - drugs, firearms and munitions, "an automatic typewriter", and fake currency. The June 1990 Mineriad
June 1990 Mineriad
The June 1990 Mineriad was the suppression of an anti-National Salvation Front sit-in protests in Bucharest, Romania by the violent intervention of coal miners from the Jiu Valley, brought to Bucharest by the government to counter the rising violence of the protesters...
in particular was widely criticized both at home and internationally, with one historian (Andrei Pippidi) comparing the events to Nazi Germany's Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...
. Government inquiries later established that the miners were infiltrated and instigated by former Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
operatives. In February 1994 a Bucharest court "found two security officers, Colonel Ion. Nicolae and warrant officer Corneliu Dumitrescu, guilty of ransacking the house of Ion Raţiu
Ion Ratiu
Ion Raţiu was a Romanian politician and the presidential candidate of the National Peasants' Party in the 1990 elections, in which he ranked third with 4.29% of the vote.-Biography:...
, a leading figure in the National Peasant Christian Democratic Party, during the miners’ incursion, and stealing $100,000."
Pardons
In December 2001, Iliescu pardonPardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
ed three inmates convicted for bribery
Bribery
Bribery, a form of corruption, is an act implying money or gift giving that alters the behavior of the recipient. Bribery constitutes a crime and is defined by Black's Law Dictionary as the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official or...
, including George Tănase, former Financial Guard head commissioner for Ialomiţa
Ialomita County
Ialomița is a county of Romania, in Muntenia, with the capital city at Slobozia.-Demographics:In 2002, it had a population of 296,572 and the population density was 67/km²....
. Iliescu had to revoke Tănase's pardon a few days later due to the media outcry, claiming that "a legal adviser was superficial in analyzing the case". Later, the humanitarian reasons invoked in the pardon were contradicted by another medical expert opinion. Another controversial pardon was that of Dan Tartagă—a businessman from Braşov
Brasov
Brașov is a city in Romania and the capital of Brașov County.According to the last Romanian census, from 2002, there were 284,596 people living within the city of Brașov, making it the 8th most populated city in Romania....
that, while drunk, had run over and killed two people on a pedestrian crossing. He was sentenced to three years and a half but was pardoned after only a couple of months. Tartagă was later sentenced to a two-year sentence for fraud
Fraud
In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual; the related adjective is fraudulent. The specific legal definition varies by legal jurisdiction. Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation...
.
Most controversial of all, on 15 December 2004, a few days before the end of his last term, Iliescu pardon
Pardon
Clemency means the forgiveness of a crime or the cancellation of the penalty associated with it. It is a general concept that encompasses several related procedures: pardoning, commutation, remission and reprieves...
ed 47 convicts, including Miron Cozma
Miron Cozma
Miron Cozma is a former Romanian labor union organizer and leader of Romania's Jiu Valley coal miners' union...
, the leader of the miners during the early 1990s, who had been sentenced in 1999 to 18 years in prison in conjunction with the 1991 Mineriad. This has attracted harsh criticism from all Romanian media.
Many of the pardoned had been convicted for corruption or other economic crimes, while one had been imprisoned for his involvement in the attempts at suppressing the 1989 Revolution.
Decorating Vadim Tudor
In the last days of his President mandate, he awarded the National Order Steaua României (rank of ceremonial knighthood) to the ultra-nationalist controversial politician Corneliu Vadim TudorCorneliu Vadim Tudor
Corneliu Vadim Tudor is leader of the Greater Romania Party , writer, journalist and a Member of the European Parliament...
, a gesture which drew criticism in the press and prompted Nobel Peace Prize
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who...
winner Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel
Sir Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE; born September 30, 1928) is a Hungarian-born Jewish-American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and...
, fifteen Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is a broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress that provides news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East "where the free flow of information is either banned by government authorities or not fully developed"...
journalists, Timişoara
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
mayor Gheorghe Ciuhandu
Gheorghe Ciuhandu
Gheorghe Coriolan Ciuhandu is a Romanian politician.He has been the mayor of Timişoara since 1996 and was one of the losing candidates for president in the 2004 presidential elections, in which he represented the Christian-Democratic National Peasants' Party...
, song writer Alexandru Andrieş, and historian Randolph Braham to return their Romanian honours in protest. The leader of Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania, Béla Markó
Béla Markó
Béla Markó is a Romanian politician and writer of Hungarian ethnicity. The former leader of the Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania , he is also the Deputy Premier in the Emil Boc government ; he had also been Minister of State in the Tăriceanu cabinet between 2004 and 2007, in charge of...
, did not show up to claim the award he received on the same occasion. The current president, Traian Băsescu, revoked the award granted to Tudor on May 24, 2007, but a lawsuit is ongoing even after Băsescu's decree was declared constitutional.
Black sites
Ion Iliescu is mentioned in the report of the Council of EuropeCouncil of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
investigator into illegal activities of the CIA
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
in Europe, Dick Marty
Dick Marty
Dick Marty is a Swiss politician and former state prosecutor of the canton of Ticino. He is a member of the Swiss Council of States , and a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.-Education:Marty holds a doctorate in law from the University of Neuchâtel with the thesis:...
. He is pointed out as one of the people who authorized or at least knew about and have to stand accountable for torture prisons
Black site
In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black project is conducted. Recently, the term has gained notoriety in describing secret prisons operated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency , generally outside of U.S. territory and legal jurisdiction. It...
at Mihail Kogălniceanu
Mihail Kogalniceanu International Airport
Mihail Kogălniceanu Airport is situated in south-east Romania, in the commune of Mihail Kogălniceanu, north northwest of Constanţa. It is the main airport of Dobrogea region and it provides access to the Constanţa County, the Constanţa city port and Black Sea Romanian resorts...
airbase from 2003 to 2005.
Awards
Iliescu was awarded with Azerbaijani Istiglal OrderIstiglal Order
Istiglal Order , is an Azerbaijani award presented by the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Istiglal means Sovereignty in Azerbaijani.-History and status:...
for his contributions to development of Azerbaijan-Romania relations and strategic cooperation between the states by President of Azerbaijan
President of Azerbaijan
The country of Azerbaijan is a presidential republic, with the President of Azerbaijan as the head of state, and the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan as head of government...
Ilham Aliyev
Ilham Aliyev
Ilham Heydar oglu Aliyev is the President of Azerbaijan since 2003. He also functions as the Chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party and the head of the National Olympic Committee...
on October 6, 2004.
- Knight Grand Cross with Grand Cordon of the Order of Merit of the Italian RepublicOrder of Merit of the Italian RepublicThe Order of Merit of the Italian Republic was founded as the senior order of knighthood by the second President of the Italian Republic, Luigi Einaudi in 1951...
- October 15, 2003 - Collar of the Order of the Cross of Terra MarianaOrder of the Cross of Terra MarianaThe Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana was instituted in 1995 to honour the independence of the Estonian state. The Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana is bestowed upon the President of the Republic. Presidents of the Republic who have ceased to hold office shall keep the Order of the Cross of...
(Estonia) - Knight Grand Cross of the Grand Order of King TomislavGrand Order of King TomislavThe Grand Order of King Tomislav , or more fully the Grand Order of King Tomislav with Sash and Great Morning Star , is the highest state order of the Republic of Croatia...
("For outstanding contribution to the promotion of friendship and development co-operation between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Romania." - May 12, 2003) - Order of the White Eagle (Poland, 2003)
Further reading
- Vladimir Alexe — Ion Iliescu - biografia secretă: "Candidatul manciurian" (Ion Iliescu - The Secret Biography: "The Manchurian Candidate"); 2000; ISBN 973-581-036-0
- The supplement dedicated to Iliescu (in Romanian), published by Academia CaţavencuAcademia CatavencuAcademia Caţavencu is a Romanian satirical magazine founded in 1991 and made famous by its investigative journalism. Academia Caţavencu also owns Radio Guerrilla , an FM radio station with national coverage ; Tabu, a women's magazine, Superbebe, a magazine for new parents, Aventuri la pescuit, a...
, 22 December 2004