History of Romania (1989–present)
The FSN transformed itself into a massive political party in short time and overwhelmingly won the general election of May 1990, with Iliescu as president.
Subsequently, the Romanian government undertook a programme of free market economic reforms and privatization, following a gradualist line rather than shock therapy throughout the early and mid 1990s.
During the recent period, Romania has become more closely integrated with the West, becoming a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 2004[1] and of the European Union (EU) in 2007.
On 21 December, President Nicolae Ceaușescu had his apparatus gather a mass-meeting in Bucharest downtown in an attempt to rally popular support for his regime and publicly condemn the mass protests of Timișoara.
During the Romanian Revolution, power was taken by a group called the National Salvation Front (FSN), which gathered dissidents, both from within the Communist Party and non-affiliated.
Their leadership was made of former political prisoners of the 1950s, repatriated émigrés, and people which had not been affiliated with the Romanian Communist Party (PCR).
As the anti-government protesters started to charge the Palace of the Parliament, more groups of workers from around the country poured into Bucharest to protect the fragile government.
During the spring 1990 electoral campaign, the opposition parties organised a massive sit-in protest in down-town Bucharest, later known as the Golaniad.
The freshly elected president, Ion Iliescu, issued a call to Romania's population to come and defend the government from further attacks.
After the situation calmed down, president Iliescu publicly thanked the miners for their help in restoring order in Bucharest, and requested their return to the Jiu Valley.
[3][4] Parliamentary inquiries showed that members of the government intelligence services were involved in the instigation and manipulation of both the protesters and the miners,[4] and later, in June 1994, a Bucharest court found two former Securitate officers guilty of ransacking and stealing $100,000 from the house of a leading opposition politician.
The government took some limited steps towards the liberalisation of the market, started a privatisation program through management employee buyouts and sought to further relations with the Euro-Atlantic structures (the EEC/EU and NATO; the Snagov Declaration of 21 June 1995 committed the Romanian parliamentary political parties to Romania's accession to the EU).
This coalition of sorts frequently struggled for survival, as decisions were often delayed by long periods of negotiations among the involved parties.
The period was marked by frequent quarrels inside the coalition, dubious bankruptcy of several major banks[citation needed], and a general economic downturn.
The government was also accused of allowing local elected leaders of the PSD to gain significant influence over the administration of their region, which allegedly used the newly found power for personal interests.
In the aftermath of the 2001 September 11 attacks, Romania backed the US on its "war on terrorism", giving overflight rights to the USAF during the US invasion of Afghanistan.
The country's military also actively participated both in the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the US-led Operation Enduring Freedom.
Finally, the joint PNL-PD candidate, Traian Băsescu, won the second round on 12 December 2004 with 51% of the vote and thus became the third post-revolutionary president of Romania.
The frequent disputes between the prime-minister and the president also caused a faction of the PNL supportive of Băsescu to split and form the Liberal Democratic Party (Romania).
As the conflict between the president and parliamentary parties continued, in May 2007, the PNL, PSD, PC (former PUR), and UDMR voted to impeach Băsescu for alleged violations of the constitutions.
The relations between the president and the parliamentary parties other than PDL (formed after PD and PLD merged) remained tense for the following two years.
The PDL youth minister was forced to resign after a Parliamentary commission accused her of siphoning government money towards the European Parliament campaign of Elena Băsescu, the president's daughter.
Traian Băsescu succeeded to narrowly win the second round of the presidential election, against PSD candidate Mircea Geoană.
In late 2009 and 2010 Romania was heavily hit by the worldwide economic crisis, causing several massive protests organised by trade unions.
[15] In January 2014, Romania's supreme court sentenced former prime minister Adrian Năstase, who held office between 2000 and 2004, to four years in prison for taking bribe.
In late November, a grand coalition consisting of the PSD, PNL, and UDMR/RMDSZ was instated under former army general Nicolae Ciucă, the incumbent Prime Minister of his namesake cabinet.
