ROMANIA
Before The Fall
The revolution in Romania was much more violent than those that occurred elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Ceausescu, the Romanian leader was still considered to be popular in November of 1989, but this changed within the next month. A pastor in Timisoara came under pressure from the police after he allowed some students of his to recite poetry. Soon, demonstrations critical of the government occurred outside this pastor's church and the military responded violently against the crowd. This occurred again on December 21 when Ceausescu was heckled while addressing a crowd. Ceausescu was again heckled the next day while giving a speech from party headquarters, but this time the military sided with the demonstrators and Ceausescu was forced to flee via helicopter. Control of the headquarters was taken by a group called the National Salvation Front, whose members were considered reformed communists. Ceausescu was captured and executed on December 25. (Crampton, 1997, 399-400)
After The Fall
The NSF won two thirds of the seats in the May 1990 elections and its power did not seem to show signs of dissolving until the local elections of February, which put greater power in the hands of a democratic party alliance (Crampton, 1997, 400). Reform in Romania was a very slow process. This was due to the various views of the many political parties that were represented. Romania aspired for Western integration but a number of factors stood in its way. The most notable of these was its poor human rights record; in 1996, the lower house of the Romanian Parliament voted to withhold the ban on homosexuality; this was overturned when the European Parliament intervened. Great progress towards complete democratization appeared likely after the leader of the NSF, now called the Party of Social Democracy in Romania, lost the 1996 presidential election to a member of the Democratic Convention of Romania. (Crampton, 1997, 450-452)
