Ion Diaconescu after seventeen years in prison as party of an amnesty program for political prisoners. Romanian dictator, President Nicolae Ceaușescu, and the Communist government fell in the Romanian Revolution of 1989. Diaconescu co-founded the Christian-Democratic National Peasants' Party in 1989 after the revolution. Diaconescu served as the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of Romania, the lower house of the Romanian Parliament, from 1996 to 2000. In 2011, Diaconescu criticized his own Christian-Democratic National Peasants' Party, which has been plagued by in-fighting, saying that the party should be relaunched under the leadership of former Prime Minister, Victor Ciorbea. Diaconescu died in
Nicolae Ceaușescu Augusto Pinochet's coup. Nicolae Ceaușescu was a close ally and personal friend of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaïre. Relations were in fact not just state-to-state, but party-to-party between their respective political machineries, the MPR and the PCR. Many believe that Ceaușescu's death played a role in influencing Mobutu to "democratise" Zaïre in 1990. Ceaușescu reduced the size of the Romanian Army by 15%, for which he organised a mock referendum. In line with his policy of keeping a facade of "popular democracy" he also ordered large rallies for peace to be held. In August 1976, Nicolae Ceaușescu was the