History of Romania since 1989

1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timișoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister (László Tőkés) grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceaușescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power.

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. This meeting mirrored the mass-meeting gathered in 1968 when Ceaușescu had spoken out against the invasion of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Treaty countries. This time however, the people turned angry and riot broke out. During the events of the following week, marked by confusion and street fighting, it is estimated that 1,051 people lost their lives. To this day, the real number of casualties are unknown and so are the identities of the individuals responsible for them. Those responsible for the casualties are still called "the terrorists". Ceaușescu was arrested in Târgoviște. After a summary trial by a kangaroo court, he and his wife were executed on 25 December.

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. The FSN quickly assumed the mission of restoring civil order and immediately took seemingly democratic measures. The Communist Party was thus outlawed, and Ceaușescu's most unpopular measures, such as bans on abortion and contraception, were rolled back.

In the aftermath of the revolution, several parties which claimed to be successors of pre-World War II parties were formed. The most successful were the Christian-Democratic National Peasants' Party, the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the Romanian Social Democrat Party (PSDR). Their leadership was made of former political prisoners of the 1950s, repatriated émigrés and people which had not been affiliated with the Communist Party. As a reaction, the FSN declared it would participate in the elections as a political party. The announcement triggered a series of anti-government demonstrations in Bucharest. The already tense situation was aggravated by press campaigns. The newspapers, assuming either a strong pro-government or strong pro-opposition stance, issued attacks and tried to discredit the opposing side. The FSN, having a better organisational structure, and controlling the state administration, used the press still controlled by the state in its own advantage. FSN also organised counter-manifestations, gathering the support of the blue-collar workers in the numerous factories of Bucharest. As the anti-government protesters started to charge the Parliament, more groups of workers from around the country poured into Bucharest to protect the fragile government. The most notable among these groups where the coal miners of the Jiu Valley, known in Romania for their 1977 strike against the Ceaușescu regime. The workers attacked the offices of opposition parties, however the government intervened and succeeded in re-establishing the order. These event were to be known as the first Mineriad.

...
Wikipedia