ARCHIVE – Romanian President Ion Iliescu speaks during an interview with the Associated Press news agency. Photo: Vadim Ghirda/AP/dpa
Keystone
Romania’s former president Ion Iliescu is dead. He died on Tuesday in Bucharest at the age of 95 in a Bucharest hospital. This was announced by Romania’s government. Sorin Grindeanu, interim leader of Iliescu’s social democratic party PSD, declared that he had been “the first president of democratic Romania” and had made a decisive contribution to the country’s accession to the EU and Nato.
Iliescu took power immediately after the fall of communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in December 1989. He was president from 1990 to 1996 and from 2000 to 2004 and is considered one of the most contradictory and influential Romanian politicians of the transition period.
Even before the fall of communism, he was a bearer of hope for a perestroika policy based on the model of Mikhail Gorbachev. During his first mandate, he worked together with ultra-nationalist forces, later he was a guarantor against these same forces. During his first mandate, he was also a brutal oppressor of the opposition.
Until his death, the public prosecutor’s office was investigating Iliescu’s repressive policies at the time, as well as his controversial role in Ceaușescu’s overthrow. The public prosecutor’s office accused him of being responsible for the deaths of 862 Romanians who were killed by security forces shortly after Ceaușescu’s removal from power. During his second mandate, he was one of the pioneers of Romania’s accession to the EU and NATO.
Iliescu was born on March 3, 1930 in Oltenita in southern Romania. He rose within the Communist Party and was Minister of Youth from 1967 to 1971. He later fell out of favor with Ceaușescu.