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$Unique_ID{bob00438}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Romania
The First Free Elections}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{V. Lucretia, G.H. Calin}
$Affiliation{News Agency Rompres}
$Subject{parliament
party
ion
election
national
romania
romanian
first
iliescu
political
see
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}
$Date{1990}
$Log{See Table 1.*0043801.tab
}
Title:       Romania
Book:        Romania December 1989-December 1990
Author:      V. Lucretia, G.H. Calin
Affiliation: News Agency Rompres
Date:        1990

The First Free Elections

     On March 14, 1990 the Provisional National Unity Council passed the
election bill for the holding of elections on May 20. The procedure of
organization and development of free elections, the first after more than half
a century of dictatorial regimes, was regulated in the PNUC decree-law no.
92/1990.

     Accordingly, parliament was to have a bicameral structure - a lower and
an upper house that is the Assembly of Deputies and the Senate. Both
Parliament and the President were to be elected by freely expressed universal,
equal, direct and secret ballot. The Romanian government committed itself to
the holding of free elections and welcomed the presence here of foreign
observers - about 550 important guests, representing international and
nongovernmental organizations like the Council of Europe, the European
Assembly, the Human Rights Helsinki International Foundation, the US
Commission on  European Security and Cooperation, the US Institute of
Republicans and Democrats for International Relations, the Foundation of
Electoral Systems, as well as delegations of the White House and the Villages
Roumaines. Moreover, 1,500 foreign press correspondents also came here for the
elections.

     In keeping with the election Law provisions, on March 20 the election
campaign was inaugurated nationwide.

     213 election rallies and 473 election meetings were held in Bucharest and
in the country. The atmosphere was calm, democratic, no important incidents
occurred. Yet police records mentioned a number of blamable incidents,
especially on the occasion of rallies held without legal approval, in which
participants, contrary to the dispositions contained in the election Law
incited to violence, intimidation and slandering of the political adversary.

     The election campaign was extensively featured in the media (over 1,000
newspapers and publications radio and tv programmes). Representatives of 54
parties and 62 independent candidates benefitted by free-of-charge tv
appearances for a total 3,640 minutes.

     According to data supplied by the Central Election Office, 14,826,616
voters or 86.20% of a total 17,200,722 that had their names in election rolls
cast their vote for the presidential nominees.

     12,232,498 votes or 85.07% were cast for the NSF nominee, Ion Iliescu.
1,529,188 votes or 10.64% were cast for Radu Campeanu who ran on the NLP
ticket. 618,007 votes or 4.29% were for the nominee of the
Christian-Democratic National Peasant Party, Ion Ratiu.

     The election returns for the Assembly of Deputies were as follows: the
National Salvation Front - 66.31% votes the Democratic Union of Hungarians in
Romania - 7.23% the National Liberal Party - 6.41% the Ecologist Movement -
2.62% the Christian-Democratic National Peasant Party - 2.56% the Agrarian
Democratic Party - 1.83% the Romanian Ecologist Party - 1.69% the Romanian
Socialist Democratic Party - 1.05%.

     The other parties' vote performance was below 1%.

     The election returns for the Senate revealed that 67.02% of voters cast
their ballot for National Salvation Front candidates 7.12% for those of the
Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania 7.06% for NLP candidates 2.50% for
candidates of the Christian-Democratic National Peasant Party 2.45% for the
Ecologist Movement 2.15% for the Romanians' National Unity Party 1.59% for
the Agrarian Democratic Party 1.38% for the Romanian Ecologist Party and
1.10% for the Socialist Democratic Party.

     Calm, order and equilibrium were the major traits of the climate that
pervaded the holding and development of the elections - the first step toward
institution of democracy in Romania. Collective responsibility for a
fundamental choice which should not be compromised before our people and the
international public prevailed over divergent opinions and intolerance.

     As the large majority of observers noted, the organizations system was
rather cumbersome which caused agglomeration, delays and sometimes,
irregularities such minor incidents, however, did not alter the election
returns to any significant extent, the majority of voters expressing their
clear option for Ion Iliescu and the National Salvation Front.

     The leader of the French National Assembly delegation, Mr. Andre
Billardon, Vice President of the Assembly showed that knowledge of Romanian
realities consolidated his feeling that the revolutionary change was
irreversible and that the Romanians would by themselves solve the problems
that were left pending. He also showed that it was the Romanians who made
their choice on May 20.

     In his turn, Mr. Gerlad Patrick Pratt, chief of the British Home Office
department for election affairs said that in their opinion the elections were
free and fair. They remarked the voting procedure and the impressive voter
turnout.

ROMANIA'S PRESIDENT

     The Higher Court of Justice, in its plenum, unanimously validated the
election of Mr. Ion Iliescu as president of Romania under ruling No. 1 of June
7.

     Romania's president was elected directly by the people. The election by
the people had the advantage of designating a president who, through his very
status, does not belong to any political party, being a neutral body through
the agency of whom the balance of power in the state is ensured. Thus we have
observed the ideals of the Romanian people's revolution.

INAUGURATION CEREMONY

     The joint session of the two chambers of Parliament for the swearing in
of Romania's president was held on June 20, 1990.

     "I swear to be faithful to the Romanian people, to their ideals of
freedom and prosperity".

     "I swear to observe the country's laws, to safeguard democracy, the
fundamental human rights and freedoms, the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of the homeland".

Ion Iliescu

     Ion Iliescu was born on March 3, 1930, at Oltenita, to a family of
railway workers. His father, one of the leaders of the interwar working-class
movement, was expelled from the Romanian Communist Party in 1944 after
dissensions with Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej.

     Educated in a worker milieu, where aspirations after freedom, democracy
and better living conditions were linked to socialist promises, young Ion
Iliescu became a member of the Union of Communist Youth in 1944. He enrolled
in primary school in Oltenita and finished it in Bucharest. In 1944 he was
admitted to the "Polizu" industrial lyceum, then he attended the "Spiru Haret"
lyceum and he graduated from the "Sf. Sava" lyceum. Owing to his fine school
achievement he was promoted to the leadership of the Pupils Union and then of
the Union of Communist Youth.

     He engaged in further education, first in the Polytechnic in Bucharest
and then at the Power Engineering Institute in Moscow (the
water-power-engineering department). In 1955 he got a job as designing
engineer with the Power Studies and Design Institute (ISPE).

     Despite his position and posts in communist-type organisations, he
continued to act according to his own beliefs in democracy and freedom of
thought and of expression. As by mid-1960s Romania had opened to the West,
economic updating and independence from the USSR, the communist party started
to allow experts and managerially competent people to take part in economic,
social and political decisionmaking. In that context, Ion Iliescu was elected
first secretary of the UCY Minister for youth affairs at a time when Europe as
a whole was tormented by youth movements (1967), Ion Iliescu managed to meet
most of the Romanian youth's claims through political-legislative initiatives
and practical activities. He remove the idyllic-demagogic outlook on youth an
their living conditions in Romania starting from a pragmatic analysis of
those problems and banking on a scientific vision in 1968 he created the
Centre for Research into Youth Affairs. He endeavoured to obtain the broadest
possible autonomy of the youth organisation as to the party and state
structures and to orient it not so much towards communist propaganda among
young people as towards the resolution, even if partial, of their specific
problems, against the political and economic background of the respective
epoch.

     In 1971 Ion Iliescu was appointed secretary in charge of propaganda of
the CC of the RCP, a post that set him in direct contact with Nicolae
Ceausescu. the immediate result was conflicts with the dictator. In that
period Ceau-sescu had started a counter-offensive against the course towards
modernisation and democracy in the Romanian society trying to return to a
traditional communist policy and to launch the "cultural revolution" and the
personality cult. Removed from the higher party and state echellons, Ion
Iliescu was appointed propaganda secretary of Timis county and then first
secretary of the Iasi county party organisation. Over the respective interval,
the dictator - mastering the party apparatus to an insufficient extent - still
had to consider the opinions expressed by party members as well as public
opinion.

     Ion Iliescu's activity in Timisoara and Iasi showed the same opposition
to the regime and he continued to try to change things "from the inside"
though he was more and more convinced that the fault was not one of management
but one of system. Consequently, he was placed under constant surveillance by
the securitate. One of the first to have sensed and to have opposed
Ceausescu's dictatorial tendency at a time when the latter's popularity was
growing both at home and abroad, Ion Iliescu was also one of the first to have
realised the socioeconomic and political failure of communism as both doctrine
and system. In 1979, when Romania had reached its climax in economic growth
and communist totalitarianism had not yet acquired the aberrant forms it did
later on, Ion Iliescu was removed from the political arena and appointed
chairman of the National Council of Water Management - a post for which he was
recommended by his profession.

     In his new capacity, he tried to limit the ecological disaster that
threatened Romania. Inter alia, he opposed the building of the Danube-Black
Sea Canal. He was dismissed from that office, too, in 1984 was appointed
director of the Technical Publishing House.

     Over 1984-1989, Ion Iliescu undertook studies into modern socioecomomic
and technical systems, endeavouring through his editing policy to offer
Romania minimal information of the rapid technical and scientific changes
wrought in the developed world, of new economic policies, of the modern
aspects of information science applied to the economy and of the overall
problems facing manking. His was a rearguard battle in an attempt to open up
avenues to a changing Europe at a time when Romania was placed more and more
within the boundaries of an anachronic economic, political, cultural and
scientific autarchism.

     Throughout those years he was under constant surveillance by the
securitate being considered a major political opponent and a potential threat
to the system. He lived some kind of house arrest which removed part of his
friends and acquaintances and drastically limited his contacts, in an overt
attempt at isolating him.

     That is why, during the December Revolution - both in Timisoara and in
Bucharest - his name was mentioned naturally, the way the names of other
well-known dissidents or opponents of the regime were. On December 22, 1989
Ion Iliescu was the one who, on behalf of the new state power body - the
National Salvation Front Council - announced the dissolution of all power
structures of the old regime, renunciation of the principle of a single party
and of Romania's being called a "socialist republic", proclaiming the need for
radical changes in the Romanian society in line with the principles of
democracy, freedom and human dignity, for transition to a society set on a
market economy, for political pluralism and respect for human rights.

     He was elected president of the National Salvation Front Council and
early in February 1990, with the creation of the Provisional National Unity
Council, he became its president. The National Salvation Front Conference
designated him its presidential nominee. He is married.

ION STOICESCU

     "As president of Romania, I think that my mission is to be a factor of
equilibrium and mediation of the interests and actions of the political and
social forces involved in the country's rebirth, to reconciliate them in the
context of the new democratic structure to be built in our society. I assert
before you and the whole country that I see this high magistrature put
exclusively in the service of the nation, of the safeguarding and promotion of
its interests in the world.

     This noble mission can only be fulfilled with your support as -
representatives elected by the people - with the support of the government, of
the political forces, of all the citizens of the country." (From the address at
the inauguration ceremony).

ROMANIA'S PARLIAMENT

PARLIAMENTARY TRADITIONS

     In any democracy, hence in the democracy that is being built in Romania
as well, parliament plays a particularly important role in the organization
and management of the social life. With the Romanians, the first elements of a
parliamentary life emerged at the beginning of last century. The oldest
parliamentary institutions - the civic assemblies set up during the Reglement
rules (1831) with the help of which the great boyards could supervise the
princes - enlarged their representative character with the election of the
diwans ad hoc (1857). They involved all social classes and were considered the
most democratic representative assemblies in Europe at that time.

     Romania's first parliament - the National Assembly - met in Bucharest in
1862.

     It was the 1866 Constitution that sanctioned the bicameral parliament
(the Chamber and the Senate) which - limited from the point of view of social
participation degree - operated, with the amendments made in 1898, 1894 and
1917, until the end of the First World War. It was that Parliament
that proclaimed "Romania's absolute independence" on May 9 1877, marking one
of the greatest national holidays of the Romanians.

     The parliament elected after the creation of Greater Romania, which
represented the entire nation - all provinces and all social categories - gave
the country the Constitution of 1923 considered at that time one of the most
democratic and modern constitutions in Europe. The parliament operated in
normal conditions until 1937. After that year its activity had been gradually
diminished.

     Under the 1938 Constitution which installed the royal dictatorship, the
parliament played a formal role, the primordial role being played by the
executive power responsible directly to the king. In September 1940, one of
the first measures undertaken by the military dictatorship was the liquidation
of parliamentary institutions. Parliament was called only a few times and
debated only minor issues.

     The first parliamentary elections after the second world conflagration
took place in 1946 materializing in a unicameral parliament which became a
mere instrument of the executive leadership that was in the hands of the
communist party for 45 years.

     The December 1989 revolution brought to the fore the need
for democratization of Romanian society, a highly complex and comprehensive
process within which parliament holds a greatly significant place.

ROMANIA'S PARLIAMENT

     An outcome of the first free elections held  in Romania in the past fifty
years, Romania's Parliament elected for a two-and-a-half-year term at the
most, is a constituent assembly whose main task is to work out the
Constitution. It is also a legislative assembly, only until the new
Constitution comes into force. After that Parliament will call new elections
within one year at the most.

     The Romanian Parliament has two chambers.

     The Assembly of Deputies (the Lower House) is made up of 387 deputies
adding to which are nine deputies, with the same rights nominated by the
organizations of the ethnic minorities and the Senate (the Upper House),
which has 119 members.

     The bicameral system ensures an equilibrium in exercising the legislative
power. The Senate is a counterweight as is represents local collectives at
county level and the army guaranteeing the adoption of solidly substantiated
laws rooted in Romania's realities.

     The distribution of mandates in the two chambers of Parliament is as
follows:

[See Table 1.: Distribution of Seats in the Two Chambers of Parliament.]

     Another 28 seats have been distributed to smaller political parties and
groups as well as to several independent candidates.

     As many as 12 ethnic minorities are represented on Parliament. Three of
them have their seats in Parliament following the elections, while the
other nine have been granted a seat in the Assembly of Deputies in keeping
with the provisions of the Election Law.

ION STOICESCU,
GH. CALIN
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE ALEXANDRU BIRLADEANU

     Mr. Alexandru Birladeanu was born on 25 January 1911, in Tighina county.
Graduate of the high school and University of Iasi. He began his career as a
professor with the Faculty of Law of the University of Iasi. After 1944 he
became a professor of the Academy of Economic Studies of Bucharest - the
political economics chair.

     He has been a member of the Romanian Academy since 1955. At present he
holds the office of vice-president of the Academy. He is married and has two
children.

     "We do not dream of a perfect society, this has proved an often dangerous
and suffering-bringing utopia. We must build a society which should be ever
improvable, i.e. open to the better, to the new, to progress. This road of
continuous improvement has no end, and we can tread it only if there is true
democracy. Its ideals - liberty, dignity, decent life - ideals won by mankind
with so many sacrifices over its millennium-old history, must be for ever
instated in our country so that this martyr people can share them. (From his
address at the ceremony of the inauguration of Romania's president)

SPEAKER OF THE ASSEMBLY OF DEPUTIES DAN MARTIAN

     He was born on 23 November 1935 in the commune of Remetea, Bihor county. He
graduated from the secondary technical school of Oradea and then from the
Academy of Economic Studies of Bucharest, Faculty of Economics. He continued his
studies at the Lomonosov University of Moscow which he graduated in 1960. He
took up work as assistant professor at Bucharest University. In 1971 he was
appointed Minister for Youth Affairs.

     Following conflicts with the ex-dictator, he was released from that office
in October 1972. In May 1974 he refused to hold a responsible office in the
countryside and definitively returned to teaching as university reader. He is
married and has two children.

     "We are called upon to form together with the senators an assembly meant to
draft a new constitution the people and country so badly need. It should set
from reality, from the requirements of the Romanian society as it is today, from
our historical and political traditions, from the traditions of our state life."

     "This is a happy opportunity our participation and capability having to
reflect as the country's fundamental law and we will succeed only by working
jointly. That is why I think that diversity and pluralism are benefic elements
and we all will have to cultivate them." (From his inaugural address to the
Assembly of Deputies)