History of Romania since 1989 History of Romania since 1989 After the Communist leader Nicolae Ceaușescu was executed in the Romanian Revolution of December 1989, the National Salvation Front (FSN) took power, led by Ion Iliescu. The FSN transformed itself into a political party and overwhelmingly won the general election of May 1990, with Iliescu as president. These first months were marked by violent protests and counter-protests, involving among others the coal miners of the Jiu Valley. The government undertook a programme of free market economic reforms and privatization, following a gradualist line rather than shock therapy. Economic reforms have continued, although there was little
Nicolae Ceaușescu National Bolshevism such as Jean-François Thiriart, but there was a publicised connection between him and Iosif Constantin Drăgan, an Iron Guardist Romanian-Italian émigré millionaire (Drăgan was already committed to a Dacian Protochronism that largely echoed the official cultural policy). Nicolae Ceaușescu had a major influence on modern-day Romanian populist rhetoric. In his final years, he had begun to rehabilitate the image of pro-Nazi dictator Ion Antonescu. Although Antonescu's image was never a fully official myth in Ceaușescu's time, today's politicians such as Corneliu Vadim Tudor have coupled the images of the two leaders into their versions of a national Pantheon.