Romania – the Road to Democracy

The enthusiasm that was on the face of every Romanian for having won against the communist regime shortly got lost because the road to the new world was made of many obstacles.

After the revolution, new parties that were successors of some other historical parties were formed. However, that didn’t change much since the party, that was formed during the revolution and that was ruling Romania (National Salvation Front FSN), controlled the country administration and the press, using the old system. The fact that they wanted to be elected as a political party made many people mad and triggered many anti-governmental demonstrations in Bucharest. In order to protect the fragile government, the coal miners of the Jiu Valley came to Bucharest and attacked the offices of opposition parties, but the government managed to re-establish the order. That event was called “prima mineriada”.

A month later, there was another confrontation between the coal miners and the anti-government protesters. Although the confrontation started to be violent, the riot police managed to restore the peace. That was called “mineriada a-II-a”.

On the 20^th of May 1990, Ion Iliescu became the first elected Romanian president. Although he was very popular, the opposition parties organized a big protest against the economic strategies. Iliescu asked the people to come and defend the government from being attacked, so the coal miners came back to Bucharest. But being led by Miron Cozma, they were extremely brutal attacking not only anti-government protesters but, also, bystanders, the offices of the anti-government newspapers and of the opposition parties. That was called “mineriada a-III-a”.

In December 1991, a new constitution was adopted. Although the economic situation was very hard and the living standards were very low, Iliescu was elected again. The next years were very difficult and Romania continued “walking” through the same marsh.

In 1996, Emil Constantinescu was elected as the new president of Romania. The Democrat Convention of Romania was made of a few parties and, unfortunately, that led to many conflicts among its members and to a general economic downturn. That provoked “mineriada a-IV-a”.

Iliescu’s Social Democratic Party came back to power but, although it was still a very corrupted system, the Romanian economy witnessed the first years of growth after the revolution of 1989.

After the 11^th of September attacks, Romania helped USA with its war against the terrorism. In 2004, Romania became a NATO member.

Romania joined the European Union in 2007. Romania’s road to a market economy was very long, the communism leaving deep wounds in the soul of this people.