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Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 05:51:04 +0300
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From: Dorin Cheptea <dorin.cheptea@gmail.com>
To: Wikipedia statistics <folks@wikipedometer.net>
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	into
	evidence since 1987, and ever since Ceausescu's regime was fearful the
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OK, perhaps a bit of recent history of Romania is necessary.
When in 1989 communism fell all over eastern Europe, the Romanian society
was boiling, but the authorities were still in strong control. Serious
disagreements between Grobachov and Ceausescu came into evidence since 1987,
and ever since Ceausescu's regime was fearful the Soviets might want to
replace it with a regime friendly to them. The Soviets managed to find the
suitable guy to do that job. In fact it is believe that it was even those
guys that approached the Soviets first: Ion Iliescu, general Militaru, and
others. A "coup d'etat" was planned for the new year night 1989-1990, when
it was believed certain movements could be facilitated under the cove of New
Year celebrations. But the events on the ground took an unprecedented turn.

On December 14, Securitate was scheduled to remove the Calvinist Hungarian
pastor Laszlo Tokes from his residency in Timisoara and relocate him to
another (smaller) city. This was but a minor thing, or the time carried out
by dozen every day (at the scale of the entire country). Nobody outside his
congregation knew Tokes before. Strangely enough, several dozen of his
parishioners came to his residency and managed to delay the relocation. The
Securitate guy did not react firmly, and the matter was left for the next
day. On the 15, now there were not 20, but 200 parishioners, and things were
delayed even more. The rumors of Securtate failure to control the crowd
spread through the city, and the next day, Saturday on the 16th, thousands
of Romanians made it on purpose to walk by that house which was adjacent to
the central boulevard. People in the crowd were shouting "freedom for the
pastor" and "freedom for the people". Tokes had to come out to say that he
is free to do whatever, to calm the spirits (he was naturally afraid that
afterwards Securitate would blame him for organizing riots, which wasn't his
interest because he was no dissident or anything before, and he was willing
to relocate). When he came out, people asked him, who is detaining him. He
replied that nobody and invited 5 people to come in and see for themselves.
Somehow that idea drew suspicion from the crowd. Securitate started to pick
up people throughout the city. Over 1,000 people did not come home that
night. Most were youth who had gone to party with friends, and had nothing
in mind of a revolution. But their parents and relatives became too worried,
and Sunday, on 17th started to gather in the center of the city in huge
numbers to demand to learn about the fate of their relatives. (Tokes was
totally forgotten at this point.) Moreover, there were small crowds (200-300
peopl) all over the city that stayed through the night, such as for example
in the university campus, in front of the cathedral, and some other places.
The military, police and Securitate were securing whatever they were told by
superiors to secure, but did not manage to suppress the crowd altogether.

Now, should the Securitate have freed the majority next morning and should
have abstain from further escalation the tension, everything would have gone
towards becoming more calm. BUt they made a crucial mistake. Ceusescu
planned a 2-day visit to Iran, and before leaving he wordered two generals:
Stanculescu and Chitac to quill down the spirits in Timisoara. After the
noon on Sunday, hundreds of people started to poor out from the mass in the
cathedral in Timisoara, including many who had relatives detained and knew
nothing about them. In the square they were met by a line of soldiers with
life ammo. Some people in the crowd were histerical, because they feared
something dreadful has happened to their children, brothers, husbands.
Someone from the military has ordered to shoot into the crowd, and the
soldiers did. Several dozen people were killed. the army started to move
tanks through the city: for example, columns would move from east end to
west end, then vice-versa. On many occasions, life ammo fire was opened in
order to scare people. But those bullets hit blocs of flats, hit
by-standers. People were enraged.

On Monday, one by one all major factories in Timisoara went on strike. With
the exception of one or two people gathered and remained in the factory, but
in 1-2 case some decided to march to the center of the city. The force that
actually did the Revolution in Timisoara was this crowd of over 50,000
workers that first went on strike, then from their factories pored into the
streets (in long columns). I don't know what happened exactly on 18th and
19th, i.e. I don't know who was in control and where, but on the 20th the
army was ordered to their bases, and the streets of the city were free for
people to take over.

Ceausescu returned from Iran and found the disaster in Timisoara. He was
convinced that it is a common operation of the Soviets, Hungarians and
western powers. It was neither. Westerners and Hungarians did not have any
resources to pool out such a thing, while Soviets had another plan, for
which Stanculescu (he was one of the conspirators) was one of the essential
figures, so he had to keep doing whatever not to have Ceausescu's suspicion
he was about to betray them. Ceausescu rallied people in Bucharest in front
of the party headquarters on 21st and 22nd - two huge meetings to support
his regime. People were brought from factories known as most loyal to the
regime. On the 21st he made a crucial mistake to make the meeting live on
TV. At one point the crowd erupted with anti-communist cries and "tell us
the truth about Timisoara". He managed to keep in control, but this was
live, and the entire country saw that it is possible to get to this regime.
If their dared cry that in front of him in the very heart of his meeting,
then nobody anymore feared talking about that while going to buy bread or
other daily chores. Everybody was talking, hence nobody feared. The live
broadcast from the square was cut "for technical reasons" for some 10-20
minutes when there were problems. But in the afternoon of the 21st people
did not all go home. Some went to the nearby University Square (and the
boulevard north of it) and moved erratically in the crowd (at least 10,000
people). As the dusk came, Soldiers were called in. And they made order,
other dozens of people were killed. Again, one of the officers giving order
to shoot was Stanculescu.

On the 22nd, Ceausescu learned that the minister of defense has committed
suicide. Calling that guy a traitor (for committing suicide), Ceausescu made
Stanculescu acting minister of defense. The meeting on the 22nd, this time
not live on TV, went even worse. At some point "everybody" came to Ceausescu
to tell him there are "terrorists" and "shooters" in the crowd. and he
should come out of the balcony. Then Stanculescu recommended him to take the
helicopter from the roof of the party headquarters to his villa in Snagov
(30 km north). But in Snagov Ceausescu learned he has no proper
communication, command and control. He decided to go further to some
factory, to rally workers to his support. He took the helicopter the second
time, but "somehow" in mid-air the pilot discovered he does not have enough
fuel (!). They have to land in a field. Ceausescu finds a car and with his
wife and one more person go to the city of Targoviste. There they don't
manage to find a factory, but are retained/detained/invited/obliged to the
military unit. For the next 3 night he is kept in isolation with just food
and no communication. On the 25th, he is pulled out to a mock trial,
masterminded by Gelu Voican-Voiculescu and ... Voctor Stanculescu. Ceausescu
is so shocked he can not but point finger at Stanculescu, unable to find the
proper words to express his outrage. Meantime, the "trial" ends within an
hour and he is found "guilty" to be executed. In his last hour he managed
actually to keep his dignity, but he was betrayed by the very people he
brought around him.

In the meantime, in Bucharest, the Party headquarters were invaded by the
crowd (around 1-2 a clock). At the TV, a number of people, learning that
Ceausescu has fled, went online to do anti-communist broadcast. Some of them
were very erratic, and only spread rumors and panic (out of their sheer
incompetence, like Dinescu, who now claims he was a dissident before), like
rumor that tub water in poisoned (!) Around 5-6pm, a group of people, led by
Ion Iliescu (who spent the previous 3 hours in some sort of negociation at
the Soviet trade mission in Bucharest) came to the TV to broadcast life a
communique of the "Front for National Salvation", which blamed Ceausescu for
defiling "the sociallist values", and said that them have taken power,
followed by a list of names, and "(...) with your permission, last on the
list, me, Ion Iliescu". Hence the name of the new leader was revealed to the
people.

So that the transition of power does not seem a game, "terrorists" started
to attack the TV, and other buildings over the next 3-4 days. In fact,
Stanculescu, from his command office (in full security) was ordering
different low-level military units (companies, even platoons) to take
control of different "objectives" from different approaches, and those units
fought with each other. Sometimes, it was possible to make such that ponoe
side was police, or Securitate, or some vollonteers who came fight for the
revolution. The most fierce of these clashes occurred for the runway (not
for the building) of the Otopeni International Airport in the north of
Bucharest, possible because the order to disengage did not follow soon
enough. It turned out later that the two company-size units were from the
same regiment. (The result was a draw, noone won, noone lost, but it cost
about 50 lives in a heroic field battle as you see in WWI and WWII movies
that lasted a day I think.)

In total, there were ca. 150 deaths in Timisoara, ca 150 in Bucharest until
the 22dd December and ca. 800 afterwards to mock the transition of power.

In January 1990, however, dissidents started to organize themselves and
demand true reforms. Iliescu could not keep the pressure. First he had to
accept a multi-party system, then he had to allow the three pre-WWII parties
legalized, then on and on. In June 1990 he managed to crash the student
demonstration in the University Square in Bucharest with the help of miners.
But despite all that, he and there there were multiple cracks, because
people thought there was a genuine change in power, so they acted
accordingly. Even Iliescu's co-conspirators were not all safe. He and their
someone discovered some of them ordered shooting people, and people did not
fear making all that public, and everybody was listening. He had to let go
some of his close allies, he had to bring in some people (like Roman) who
were not aware of the plot before December 1989. Plus, he had to have
technicians in technical posts, and many of those tended to have reformist
views.

In the spring (if I am not mistaken) of 1990, the former dissidents
organized a group they called Civic Alliance, with about 150 members from
intellighentsia. It was appolitical, but it provided the impetus for the
future Democratic Convention.

Well, there were quick elections in May 1990, mostly won by the FSN
(Iliescu's "revolutionary" organization who now had to be but a simple
party), but also they allowed many anti-Communists to acquire legitimacy in
power at different levels. A new constitution was drawn, and elections were
held in 1992. By then the society was fractured into those that blamed
Iliescu for coup-d'etat and those that wanted only moderate reforms and for
whom someone like Iliescu in powere was ok. The society was deeply
fractured. The Democratic Convention lost the 1992 elections, but it built
itself as the opposition force. (Iliescu's intent to dilute things with
starting 1,000 political parties failed.) By 1992 things changed in the
world so much that Iliescu's party was moving towards Social Democracy (yet
it only arrived there after 2000), there was no longer any possibility of
becoming *the* party. Even inside his party, most rejected that idea.

So, you see how the Democratic Convention was born. It won the elections in
1996. But until that point there was no serious scrutiny as to who exactly
are the people at the top of the Democatic Convention. It was know that the
vast majority of them were anti-Communist, many were old guys that where
ten-agers or in their 20ies before 1944, and were members of the youth
organizations of the PNTCD (National Peasant Christian Democratic Party) of
PNL (National Liberal Party), main pre WWII parties in Romania.
Unfortunately it turned out that 45 years of communism + 7 years of Iliescu
regime resulted in the death of the most moralistic people, while the guys
that prefer to adapt and where not incorruptible survived. For example, the
leader of the PNTCD was Corneliu Coposu, the leader of the PNTCD youth
before 1947. He was a dissident and fully respected, but he died in 1995.
His deputy was someone named Diaconescu, who ... had 11 nephews, each in
need of a sweet government post. But is Diaconescu has 11, what prevents "me
from having 2 or 3"?...

People were so disappointed by the corruption that ensued, that in 2000,
PNTCD did not pass the threshold !

As for the economics and transition, it was important to do things early on,
as was partially done in Poland and Estonia. Iliescu's 7 years (December
1989 - December 1996) meant the reforms were slow, the big enterprises have
accumulated huge debts and nobody would buy them, etc. Inflation was high
already. Whatever economic reforms were done since 1996 (and they were
significant in comparison to that was done before), were too late. In 1998
Russian crisis had some effect. Then in 1999 Romania had to pay back ca. 2
billion USD in debt (the living standard meant this kind of money look
fantastic). The average salary dropped more and more. It was at about 50-70
USD/month in 1999, at a time when the prices for goods have already reached
the level of the western Europe. Democratic Convention was doomed. You don't
even have to factor in the typical Romanian ugly quarrels inside any
organization or association.

Then came a strange news. In July 1999, Romania owed to pay 550 million USD
in "samurai bonds" (bonds issued for Japanese market). The conditions for
them were not drastic, i.e. Romania did not stand to loose anything (like
some property or some rights) except its reputation if it did not pay back.
As a result, everybody expect Romania not to pay them back. Technically that
meant default, which meant different (much worse) economic and financial
rating for the country, etc, you name it. All calculations showed the
National Bank did not have enough money to pay the loan. As a result, most
investors in the spring on 1999 liquidated their assets in Romania (which
meant even more trouble for the exchange rate, state budget and living
standard). The Japanese have already written out the money. Then, came the
news that the National Bank paid the loan back. Afterwards it turned out
that after the payment, all Romania was left with was 60 million dollars,
i.e. GDP for 1 day (even at Romania's worst level), and that less than a
week before there were not enough money yet to pay the debt. Even Romania's
government did not expect the National Bank to pull this out. Because it has
not stake, its was huge effort for nothing.

Afterwards, data for Febraury 2000 by the National Statistics Bureau showed
the first increase in Romania's GDP since 1989. People did not feel the
effects until 2001 or 2002, and even the data only came in the summer of
2000, but statistically, Febraury 2000 was the turning point. As you can
see, politicians were could totally outside the economy, and especially
parallel to economics, albeit many of them were on paper "economics
professors".

The political science of Romania re-modeled itself after the growth has
started, and the process is still going on, but we can see now towards what
(see for example European elections results, I edited the article a little
bit).

D



2009/6/12 Miacek and his crime-fighting dog <miacek08@googlemail.com>

> Thnx for the information, I've always been interested in that stuff,
> even if I don't edit corresponding wiki pages. But what about
> "Conventia Democratica" - it turned out a(n economic) failure, didn't
> it? GDP decline after some years of GDP growth.
>
> M.
>
> On 11/06/2009, Dorin Cheptea <dorin.cheptea@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Note that in 1991-1992 Romania had a technocrat government, with many
> people
> > who were not former communist party members, while after 1996, the
> > "Conventia Democratica" coalition came to power, and Iliescu lost
> > presidential elections. So, 1992-1996 is the height of former-communist
> > comeback.
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikipedia statistics discussion list
> folks@wikipedometer.net
> http://wikipedometer.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/folks
>

--001485f7d2d06a608e046c31e550
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

OK, perhaps a bit of recent history of Romania is necessary.<div><br></div>=
<div>When in 1989 communism fell all over eastern Europe, the Romanian soci=
ety was boiling, but the authorities were still in strong control. Serious =
disagreements between Grobachov and Ceausescu came into evidence since 1987=
, and ever since Ceausescu&#39;s regime was fearful the Soviets might want =
to replace it with a regime friendly to them. The Soviets managed to find t=
he suitable guy to do that job. In fact it is believe that it was even thos=
e guys that approached the Soviets first: Ion Iliescu, general Militaru, an=
d others. A &quot;coup d&#39;etat&quot; was planned for the new year night =
1989-1990, when it was believed certain movements could be facilitated unde=
r the cove of New Year celebrations. But the events on the ground took an u=
nprecedented turn.</div>
<div><br></div><div>On December 14, Securitate was scheduled to remove the =
Calvinist Hungarian pastor Laszlo Tokes from his residency in Timisoara and=
 relocate him to another (smaller) city. This was but a minor thing, or the=
 time carried out by dozen every day (at the scale of the entire country). =
Nobody outside his congregation knew Tokes before. Strangely enough, severa=
l dozen of his parishioners came to his residency and managed to delay the =
relocation. The Securitate guy did not react firmly, and the matter was lef=
t for the next day. On the 15, now there were not 20, but 200 parishioners,=
 and things were delayed even more. The rumors of Securtate failure to cont=
rol the crowd spread through the city, and the next day, Saturday on the 16=
th, thousands of Romanians made it on purpose to walk by that house which w=
as adjacent to the central boulevard. People in the crowd were shouting &qu=
ot;freedom for the pastor&quot; and &quot;freedom for the people&quot;. Tok=
es had to come out to say that he is free to do whatever, to calm the spiri=
ts (he was naturally afraid that afterwards Securitate would blame him for =
organizing riots, which wasn&#39;t his interest because he was no dissident=
 or anything before, and he was willing to relocate). When he came out, peo=
ple asked him, who is detaining him. He replied that nobody and invited 5 p=
eople to come in and see for themselves. Somehow that idea drew suspicion f=
rom the crowd. Securitate started to pick up people throughout the city. Ov=
er 1,000 people did not come home that night. Most were youth who had gone =
to party with friends, and had nothing in mind of a revolution. But their p=
arents and relatives became too worried, and Sunday, on 17th started to gat=
her in the center of the city in huge numbers to demand to learn about the =
fate of their relatives. (Tokes was totally forgotten at this point.) Moreo=
ver, there were small crowds (200-300 peopl) all over the city that stayed =
through the night, such as for example in the university campus, in front o=
f the cathedral, and some other places. The military, police and Securitate=
 were securing whatever they were told by superiors to secure, but did not =
manage to suppress the crowd altogether. =A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>Now, should the Securitate have freed the majority next=
 morning and should have abstain from further escalation the tension, every=
thing would have gone towards becoming more calm. BUt they made a crucial m=
istake. Ceusescu planned a 2-day visit to Iran, and before leaving he worde=
red two generals: Stanculescu and Chitac to quill down the spirits in Timis=
oara. After the noon on Sunday, hundreds of people started to poor out from=
 the mass in the cathedral in Timisoara, including many who had relatives d=
etained and knew nothing about them. In the square they were met by a line =
of soldiers with life ammo. Some people in the crowd were histerical, becau=
se they feared something dreadful has happened to their children, brothers,=
 husbands. Someone from the military has ordered to shoot into the crowd, a=
nd the soldiers did. Several dozen people were killed. the army started to =
move tanks through the city: for example, columns would move from east end =
to west end, then vice-versa. On many occasions, life ammo fire was opened =
in order to scare people. But those bullets hit blocs of flats, hit by-stan=
ders. People were enraged.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>On Monday, one by one all major factories in Timisoara =
went on strike. With the exception of one or two people gathered and remain=
ed in the factory, but in 1-2 case some decided to march to the center of t=
he city. The force that actually did the Revolution in Timisoara was this c=
rowd of over 50,000 workers that first went on strike, then from their fact=
ories pored into the streets (in long columns). I don&#39;t know what happe=
ned exactly on 18th and 19th, i.e. I don&#39;t know who was in control and =
where, but on the 20th the army was ordered to their bases, and the streets=
 of the city were free for people to take over.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Ceausescu returned from Iran and found the disaster in =
Timisoara. He was convinced that it is a common operation of the Soviets, H=
ungarians and western powers. It was neither. Westerners and Hungarians did=
 not have any resources to pool out such a thing, while Soviets had another=
 plan, for which Stanculescu (he was one of the conspirators) was one of th=
e essential figures, so he had to keep doing whatever not to have Ceausescu=
&#39;s suspicion he was about to betray them. Ceausescu rallied people in B=
ucharest in front of the party headquarters on 21st and 22nd - two huge mee=
tings to support his regime. People were brought from factories known as mo=
st loyal to the regime. On the 21st he made a crucial mistake to make the m=
eeting live on TV. At one point the crowd erupted with anti-communist cries=
 and &quot;tell us the truth about Timisoara&quot;. He managed to keep in c=
ontrol, but this was live, and the entire country saw that it is possible t=
o get to this regime. If their dared cry that in front of him in the very h=
eart of his meeting, then nobody anymore feared talking about that while go=
ing to buy bread or other daily chores. Everybody was talking, hence nobody=
 feared. The live broadcast from the square was cut &quot;for technical rea=
sons&quot; for some 10-20 minutes when there were problems. But in the afte=
rnoon of the 21st people did not all go home. Some went to the nearby Unive=
rsity Square (and the boulevard north of it) and moved erratically in the c=
rowd (at least 10,000 people). As the dusk came, Soldiers were called in. A=
nd they made order, other dozens of people were killed. Again, one of the o=
fficers giving order to shoot was Stanculescu.</div>
<div><br></div><div>On the 22nd, Ceausescu learned that the minister of def=
ense has committed suicide. Calling that guy a traitor (for committing suic=
ide), Ceausescu made Stanculescu acting minister of defense. The meeting on=
 the 22nd, this time not live on TV, went even worse. At some point &quot;e=
verybody&quot; came to Ceausescu to tell him there are &quot;terrorists&quo=
t; and &quot;shooters&quot; in the crowd. and he should come out of the bal=
cony. Then Stanculescu recommended him to take the helicopter from the roof=
 of the party headquarters to his villa in Snagov (30 km north). But in Sna=
gov Ceausescu learned he has no proper communication, command and control. =
He decided to go further to some factory, to rally workers to his support. =
He took the helicopter the second time, but &quot;somehow&quot; in mid-air =
the pilot discovered he does not have enough fuel (!). They have to land in=
 a field. Ceausescu finds a car and with his wife and one more person go to=
 the city of Targoviste. There they don&#39;t manage to find a factory, but=
 are retained/detained/invited/obliged to the military unit. For the next 3=
 night he is kept in isolation with just food and no communication. On the =
25th, he is pulled out to a mock trial, masterminded by Gelu Voican-Voicule=
scu and ... Voctor Stanculescu. Ceausescu is so shocked he can not but poin=
t finger at Stanculescu, unable to find the proper words to express his out=
rage. Meantime, the &quot;trial&quot; ends within an hour and he is found &=
quot;guilty&quot; to be executed. In his last hour he managed actually to k=
eep his dignity, but he was betrayed by the very people he brought around h=
im.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In the meantime, in Bucharest, the Party headquarters w=
ere invaded by the crowd (around 1-2 a clock). At the TV, a number of peopl=
e, learning that Ceausescu has fled, went online to do anti-communist broad=
cast. Some of them were very erratic, and only spread rumors and panic (out=
 of their sheer incompetence, like Dinescu, who now claims he was a disside=
nt before), like rumor that tub water in poisoned (!) Around 5-6pm, a group=
 of people, led by Ion Iliescu (who spent the previous 3 hours in some sort=
 of negociation at the Soviet trade mission in Bucharest) came to the TV to=
 broadcast life a communique of the &quot;Front for National Salvation&quot=
;, which blamed Ceausescu for defiling &quot;the sociallist values&quot;, a=
nd said that them have taken power, followed by a list of names, and &quot;=
(...) with your permission, last on the list, me, Ion Iliescu&quot;. Hence =
the name of the new leader was revealed to the people.</div>
<div><br></div><div>So that the transition of power does not seem a game, &=
quot;terrorists&quot; started to attack the TV, and other buildings over th=
e next 3-4 days. In fact, Stanculescu, from his command office (in full sec=
urity) was ordering different low-level military units (companies, even pla=
toons)=A0to take control of different &quot;objectives&quot; from different=
 approaches, and those units fought with each other. Sometimes, it was poss=
ible to make such that ponoe side was police, or Securitate, or some vollon=
teers who came fight for the revolution. The most fierce of these clashes o=
ccurred for the runway (not for the building) of the Otopeni International =
Airport in the north of Bucharest, possible because the order to disengage =
did not follow soon enough. It turned out later that the two company-size u=
nits were from the same regiment. (The result was a draw, noone won, noone =
lost, but it cost about 50 lives in a heroic field battle as you see in WWI=
 and WWII movies that lasted a day I think.)</div>
<div><br></div><div>In total, there were ca. 150 deaths in Timisoara, ca 15=
0 in Bucharest until the 22dd December and ca. 800 afterwards to mock the t=
ransition of power.</div><div><br></div><div>In January 1990, however, diss=
idents started to organize themselves and demand true reforms. Iliescu coul=
d not keep the pressure. First he had to accept a multi-party system, then =
he had to allow the three pre-WWII parties legalized, then on and on. In Ju=
ne 1990 he managed to crash the student demonstration in the University Squ=
are in Bucharest with the help of miners. But despite all that, he and ther=
e there were multiple cracks, because people thought there was a genuine ch=
ange in power, so they acted accordingly. Even Iliescu&#39;s co-conspirator=
s were not all safe. He and their someone discovered some of them ordered s=
hooting people, and people did not fear making all that public, and everybo=
dy was listening. He had to let go some of his close allies, he had to brin=
g in some people (like Roman) who were not aware of the plot before Decembe=
r 1989. Plus, he had to have technicians in technical posts, and many of th=
ose tended to have reformist views.</div>
<div><br></div><div>In the spring (if I am not mistaken) of 1990, the forme=
r dissidents organized a group they called Civic Alliance, with about 150 m=
embers from intellighentsia. It was appolitical, but it provided the impetu=
s for the future Democratic Convention.=A0</div>
<div><br></div><div>Well, there were quick elections in May 1990, mostly wo=
n by the FSN (Iliescu&#39;s &quot;revolutionary&quot; organization who now =
had to be but a simple party), but also they allowed many anti-Communists t=
o acquire legitimacy in power at different levels. A new constitution was d=
rawn, and elections were held in 1992. By then the society was fractured in=
to those that blamed Iliescu for coup-d&#39;etat and those that wanted only=
 moderate reforms and for whom someone like Iliescu in powere was ok. The s=
ociety was deeply fractured. The Democratic Convention lost the 1992 electi=
ons, but it built itself as the opposition force. (Iliescu&#39;s intent to =
dilute things with starting 1,000 political parties failed.) By 1992 things=
 changed in the world so much that Iliescu&#39;s party was moving towards S=
ocial Democracy (yet it only arrived there after 2000), there was no longer=
 any possibility of becoming <i>the</i> party. Even inside his party, most =
rejected that idea.</div>
<div><br></div><div>So, you see how the Democratic Convention was born. It =
won the elections in 1996. But until that point there was no serious scruti=
ny as to who exactly are the people at the top of the Democatic Convention.=
 It was know that the vast majority of them were anti-Communist, many were =
old guys that where ten-agers or in their 20ies before 1944, and were membe=
rs of the youth organizations of the PNTCD (National Peasant Christian Demo=
cratic Party) of PNL (National Liberal Party), main pre WWII parties in Rom=
ania. Unfortunately it turned out that 45 years of communism + 7 years of I=
liescu regime resulted in the death of the most moralistic people, while th=
e guys that prefer to adapt and where not incorruptible survived. For examp=
le, the leader of the PNTCD was Corneliu Coposu, the leader of the PNTCD yo=
uth before 1947. He was a dissident and fully respected, but he died in 199=
5. His deputy was someone named Diaconescu, who ... had 11 nephews, each in=
 need of a sweet government post. But is Diaconescu has 11, what prevents &=
quot;me from having 2 or 3&quot;?...</div>
<div><br></div><div>People were so disappointed by the corruption that ensu=
ed, that in 2000, PNTCD did not pass the threshold !</div><div><br></div><d=
iv>As for the economics and transition, it was important to do things early=
 on, as was partially done in Poland and Estonia. Iliescu&#39;s 7 years (De=
cember 1989 - December 1996) meant the reforms were slow, the big enterpris=
es have accumulated huge debts and nobody would buy them, etc. Inflation wa=
s high already. Whatever economic reforms were done since 1996 (and they we=
re significant in comparison to that was done before), were too late. In 19=
98 Russian crisis had some effect. Then in 1999 Romania had to pay back ca.=
 2 billion USD in debt (the living standard meant this kind of money look f=
antastic). The average salary dropped more and more. It was at about 50-70 =
USD/month in 1999, at a time when the prices for goods have already reached=
 the level of the western Europe. Democratic Convention was doomed. You don=
&#39;t even have to factor in the typical Romanian ugly quarrels inside any=
 organization or association.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Then came a strange news. In July 1999, Romania owed to=
 pay 550 million USD in &quot;samurai bonds&quot; (bonds issued for Japanes=
e market). The conditions for them were not drastic, i.e. Romania did not s=
tand to loose anything (like some property or some rights) except its reput=
ation if it did not pay back. As a result, everybody expect Romania not to =
pay them back. Technically that meant default, which meant different (much =
worse) economic and financial rating for the country, etc, you name it. All=
 calculations showed the National Bank did not have enough money to pay the=
 loan. As a result, most investors in the spring on 1999 liquidated their a=
ssets in Romania (which meant even more trouble for the exchange rate, stat=
e budget and living standard). The Japanese have already written out the mo=
ney. Then, came the news that the National Bank paid the loan back. Afterwa=
rds it turned out that after the payment, all Romania was left with was 60 =
million dollars, i.e. GDP for 1 day (even at Romania&#39;s worst level), an=
d that less than a week before there were not enough money yet to pay the d=
ebt. Even Romania&#39;s government did not expect the National Bank to pull=
 this out. Because it has not stake, its was huge effort for nothing.=A0</d=
iv>
<div><br></div><div>Afterwards, data for Febraury 2000 by the National Stat=
istics Bureau showed the first increase in Romania&#39;s GDP since 1989. Pe=
ople did not feel the effects until 2001 or 2002, and even the data only ca=
me in the summer of 2000, but statistically, Febraury 2000 was the turning =
point. As you can see, politicians were could totally outside the economy, =
and especially parallel to economics, albeit many of them were on paper &qu=
ot;economics professors&quot;.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The political science of Romania re-modeled itself afte=
r the growth has started, and the process is still going on, but we can see=
 now towards what (see for example European elections results, I edited the=
 article a little bit).</div>
<div><br></div><div>D</div><div><br></div><div><br><br><div class=3D"gmail_=
quote">2009/6/12 Miacek and his crime-fighting dog <span dir=3D"ltr">&lt;<a=
 href=3D"mailto:miacek08@googlemail.com">miacek08@googlemail.com</a>&gt;</s=
pan><br>
<blockquote class=3D"gmail_quote" style=3D"margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1p=
x #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">Thnx for the information, I&#39;ve always b=
een interested in that stuff,<br>
even if I don&#39;t edit corresponding wiki pages. But what about<br>
&quot;Conventia Democratica&quot; - it turned out a(n economic) failure, di=
dn&#39;t<br>
it? GDP decline after some years of GDP growth.<br>
<font color=3D"#888888"><br>
M.<br>
</font><div class=3D"im"><br>
On 11/06/2009, Dorin Cheptea &lt;<a href=3D"mailto:dorin.cheptea@gmail.com"=
>dorin.cheptea@gmail.com</a>&gt; wrote:<br>
<br>
&gt; Note that in 1991-1992 Romania had a technocrat government, with many =
people<br>
&gt; who were not former communist party members, while after 1996, the<br>
&gt; &quot;Conventia Democratica&quot; coalition came to power, and Iliescu=
 lost<br>
&gt; presidential elections. So, 1992-1996 is the height of former-communis=
t<br>
&gt; comeback.<br>
&gt;<br>
<br>
</div><div><div></div><div class=3D"h5">___________________________________=
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