wh y w e l o s t
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I. Background on the Romanian Right
I
n the 1990 elections, the National Liberal Party (PNL) and the National Peasant
Christian Democratic Party (PNTCD) re-emerged on the right side of the Romanian
political spectrum. They claimed this position on the basis of being successors to the
dominant pre-World War II parties, the Liberals and National Peasant Party. Even though
PNTCD was considered center-left before the war, after 1989 it defined itself as a Chris-
tian-democratic force opposing the former Communist party transformed into the Na-
tional Salvation Front (FSN).
Having lost the 1990 democratic elections, PNL and PNTCD created the nucleus of the
center-right pole of Romanian politics, toward which other smaller parties gravitated (for
instance traditional social democrats – the PSDR – and ecologists). However, the initiative of
creating the Democratic Convention of Romania (CDR) comprising all of these came from
an NGO Civic Alliance that in 1990 gathered prominent figures from among anti-Commu-
nist dissidents and intellectuals. Other associations like those of former political prisoners of
the Communist regime and of leaders of the 1989 revolution joined the CDR alliance.
In the 1992 local elections, CDR had some major successes in Bucharest and other large
cities, and it announced a possible victory in the fall general elections. But the Liberals
decided to run by themselves in the general elections and left CDR, which shook the
solidarity of the center-right pole. University Professor in Geology and Rector of the Uni-
versity of Bucharest Emil Constantinescu was elected president of CDR and candidate for
the presidency. The Liberals failed to enter the parliament in 1992, while CDR got a good
result, but not enough to govern the country. In the 1996 elections, the Liberals re-joined
CDR, and solidarity on the right has been stronger ever since.
Against a background of accusations of corruption addressed at the ruling Democratic
National Salvation Front (FDSN) government, and with all significant media aligned with
CDR during the 1996 parliamentary election campaign, the right-of-center coalition suc-
ceeded in winning the elections. However, it could not govern the country alone and had
to invite a center-left coalition of traditional social democrats with the Democratic Party
(PD) and Democratic Union of Hungarians in Romania (UDMR) grouping to join the
coalition. Constantinescu was also elected president of Romania when he defeated post-
Communist, would-be Social Democrat Ion Iliescu in the runoff election.
There were so many parties in the government coalition that internal quarrelling could
not be overcome throughout the whole period of the mandate. Difficult economic reforms
were also undertaken, resulting in a population that was desperate and frustrated by the
time of the 2000 elections. People voted for the former-Communist Social Democratic
Party of Romania (PDSR) and the Greater Romania Party (PRM), which was comprised of
extremists combining nationalism and antiestablishment appeals including, for example, a
promised to get rid of corruption even though this meant executing corrupt individuals in
public places. The CDR split again as the Liberals wanted to avoid being held responsible
for the difficulties of the government. PNTCD thus took all the blame, and even though it
was covered under a newly renamed coalition, CDR 2000, it became a marginal force.
In 2004, the liberal PNL and pragmatic PD decided to form a new right-of-center co-
alition around two prominent political figures: Theodor Stolojan (former independent
