Ion Iliescu facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Ion Iliescu IO, OCTM, GOKT, OWE, OMRI
Iliescu in 2004
2nd and 4th President of Romania
In office 20 December 2000 – 20 December 2004
Prime Minister	Mugur Isărescu Adrian Năstase
Preceded by	Emil Constantinescu
Succeeded by	Traian Băsescu
In office 26 December 1989 – 29 November 1996 Acting until 20 June 1990
Prime Minister	Petre Roman Theodor Stolojan Nicolae Văcăroiu
Preceded by	Nicolae Ceaușescu (as President) National Salvation Front Council (interim government)
Succeeded by	Emil Constantinescu
Member of the National Salvation Front Council
In office 22 December 1989 – 13 February 1990
Member of the Senate of Romania
In office 22 November 1996 – 14 December 2008
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office 9 June 1990 – 27 September 1990
Co-Founding Leader of the National Salvation Front
In office 22 December 1989 – 7 April 1992 Serving with Petre Roman and Dumitru Mazilu
Succeeded by	Petre Roman
Founding Leader of the Democratic National Salvation Front
In office 7 April 1992 – 11 October 1992
Succeeded by	Oliviu Gherman
President of the Party of Social Democracy in Romania
In office January 1997 – 20 December 2000
Preceded by	Oliviu Gherman
Succeeded by	Adrian Năstase
Positions held during the Communist era Member of the State Council In office 1979–1980 Member of the Great National Assembly In office 1957–1961 In office 1965–1973 In office 1975–1985 Member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party In office 1965–1984 Minister of Youth and First Secretary of the Union of Communist Youth In office 11 December 1967 – 17 March 1971 Prime Minister Ion Gheorghe Maurer Preceded by Petru Enache (as First Secretary of the Union of Communist Youth) Succeeded by Dan Marțian President of the National Water Council In office 28 August 1979 – 16 March 1984 Prime Minister Ilie Verdeț Constantin Dăscălescu Preceded by Florin Ioan Iorgulescu Succeeded by Ion Badea President of Iași County Council In office 1974–1979 Vice-President of Timiș County Council In office 1971–1974
Personal details
Born	(1930-03-03) 3 March 1930 (age 94) Oltenița, Kingdom of Romania
Political party	Romanian Communist Party (1953–1989) National Salvation Front (1989–1992) Democratic National Salvation Front (1992) Independent politician (1992–1996; 2000–2004) Party of Social Democracy in Romania (1996–2000) Social Democratic Party (2004–present)
Spouse	Nina Iliescu ​ (m. 1951)​
Parents	Alexandru Iliescu [ro] (father) Maria Dumitru Toma (mother)
Alma mater	Bucharest Polytechnic Institute Moscow State University
Known for	Romanian Revolution
Religion	Atheist
Signature

Ion Iliescu (Romanian pronunciation: [iˈon iliˈesku]; born 3 March 1930) is a Romanian politician and engineer who served as the second and fourth president of Romania from 1989 until 1996 and from 2000 until 2004. Between 1996 and 2000 and also from 2004 to 2008, the year in which he retired, Iliescu was a senator for the Social Democratic Party (PSD), of which he is the founder and honorary president to this day.

Iliescu joined the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) in 1953 and became a member of its Central Committee in 1965. Beginning with 1971, he was gradually marginalized by Nicolae Ceaușescu. He had a leading role in the Romanian Revolution, becoming the country's president in December 1989. In May 1990, he became Romania's first freely elected head of state. After a new constitution was approved by popular referendum, he served a further two terms, firstly from 1992 to 1996 and then secondly from 2000 to 2004, separated by the presidency of Emil Constantinescu, who defeated him in 1996.

In 2004, during his presidency, Romania joined NATO. In April 2018, Iliescu was charged in Romania with committing crimes against humanity by "approving military measures, some of which had an evidently diversionary character" during the deadly aftermath of the country's 1989 revolution. In 2020, a judge rejected the case due to irregularities in the indictment. The indictment was remade and in 2023 the Court of Appeals decided that the trial can start. Iliescu is currently the oldest living former Romanian president.

Early life and education

Ion Iliescu was born in Oltenița, on 3 March 1930. He was the son of Alexandru Iliescu and Maria Dumitru Toma. His mother, who was originally from Bulgaria, abandoned him when he was an infant. His father, a railroad worker, had communist views, during a period in which the Romanian Communist Party was banned by the authorities. In 1931, he went to the Soviet Union to take part in the Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in Moscow. He remained in the USSR for the next four years and was arrested upon his return. He was imprisoned by the Romanian authorities from June 1940 to August 1944 and died in August 1945. During his time in the Soviet Union, Alexandru Iliescu divorced and married Marița, a chambermaid. According to Iliescu's own statements, his grandfather, Vasili Ivanovici, was a Russian Jew, who, being persecuted by the tsarist authorities because of his socialist views, took refuge in Romania.

Education

Iliescu was raised by his stepmother and by his grandparents. At age 9 he was adopted by an aunt, Aristița, who worked as a cook for Ana Pauker. He studied fluid mechanics at the Bucharest Polytechnic Institute and then as a foreign student at Moscow Power Engineering Institute. During his stay in Moscow, he was the secretary of the "Association of Romanian Students"; it is alleged that he met Mikhail Gorbachev, although Iliescu always denied this. However, years later, president Nicolae Ceaușescu probably believed that there was a connection between the two, since during Gorbachev's visit to Romania in July 1989, Iliescu was sent outside of Bucharest to prevent any contact.

Iliescu learned to speak English after the 1989 Revolution; he also speaks Russian, French, and some Spanish.

Marriage

In 1948 he met Elena "Nina" Șerbănescu, when they were both 18-year old students, he at the Saint Sava High School and she at the Iulia Hasdeu High School, in Bucharest. The two were married on July 21, 1951; they have no children, not by choice but because they could not, as Nina had three miscarriages.

Early political career (1944–1989)

Entry into politics

Campaign poster, 1965

He joined the Union of Communist Youth in 1944 and the Communist Party in 1953 - becoming a career politician from that point forward. He was nominated and elected to be the secretary of the Central Committee of the Union of Communist Youth in 1956, and later elected to the Central Committee of the Romanian Communist Party in 1965. He also briefly served as the head of the Department of Propaganda, before taking the job of Minister for Youth-related Issues in 1967. In 1972, he was pressured to resign from this job, since Ceaușescu did not fully trust him and believed that Iliescu would be his successor.

Iliescu in 1976 with Elena Ceaușescu

After this point, he was effectively sidelined from the national political scene yet retained his seat on the Central Committee of the Party; however Ceaușescu could not have him ousted from it until 1985 since he required a majority within the Committee to approve such a measure. Iliescuu was demoted to vice-president of the Timiș County Council (1972–1974), and later president of the Iași Council (1974–1979). Until 1989, he was in charge of the Editura Tehnică publishing house. After his removal from the Central Committee in 1985, the Securitate (secret police) kept a closer watch on him, as he was openly in opposition to Ceaușescu's rule while serving on the Committee.

Romanian Revolution

The Romanian Revolution began as a popular revolt in Timișoara. After Ceaușescu was overthrown on 22 December, the political vacuum was filled by an organization named National Salvation Front (FSN: Frontul Salvării Naționale), formed spontaneously by second-rank Communist party members opposed to the policies of Ceaușescu and non-affiliated participants in the revolt. Iliescu was quickly acknowledged as the leader of the organization and therefore of the provisional authority. He first learned of the revolution when he noticed the Securitate was no longer tailing him.

The Ceaușescus were captured, hauled before a drumhead court-martial, and executed on Christmas Day. Years later, Iliescu conceded that the trial and execution were "quite shameful, but necessary" to end the chaos that had riven the country since Ceaușescu's overthrow.

Iliescu (center) with FSN members Dumitru Mazilu (left) and Petre Roman (right) on 23 December 1989, one day after the formation of the FSN.

Iliescu proposed multi-party elections and an "original democracy". This is widely held to have meant the adoption of Perestroika-style reforms rather than the complete removal of existing institutions; it can be linked to the warm reception the new regime was given by Mikhail Gorbachev and the rest of the Soviet leadership, and the fact that the first post-revolutionary international agreement signed by Romania was with that country.

Iliescu later evoked the possibility of trying a "Swedish model" of social democracy and democratic socialism.

Rumours abounded for years that Iliescu and other high-ranking Party officials had been planning to overthrow Ceaușescu, but the events of December 1989 overtook them. For instance, Nicolae Militaru, the new regime's first Defense Minister, said that Iliescu and others had planned to take Ceaușescu prisoner in February 1990 while he was out of the capital. However, Iliescu denied this, saying that the nature of the Ceaușescu regime—particularly the Securitate's ubiquity—made advance planning for a coup all but impossible.

Iliescu in 1990

Presidency (1990–2004)

First term (1990–1996)

Presidential styles of Ion Iliescu
Reference style	Președintele (President)
Spoken style	Președintele (President)
Alternative style	Domnia Sa/Excelența Sa (His Excellency)

The National Salvation Front (FSN) subsequently decided to organize itself as a party and participate in the 1990 general election—the first free election held in the country in 53 years–with Iliescu as its presidential candidate. The FSN won a sweeping victory, taking strong majorities in both chambers. In the separate presidential election, Iliescu won handily, taking 85 percent of the vote, still the largest vote share for a free presidential election. He became Romania's first democratically elected head of state. To date, it is the only time since the Fall of Communism that a president has been elected in a single round.

Iliescu and his supporters split from the Front and created the Democratic National Salvation Front (FDSN), which later evolved into the Party of Social Democracy in Romania (PDSR), then the Social Democratic Party (PSD) (see Social Democratic Party of Romania). Progressively, the Front lost its character as a national government or generic coalition, and became vulnerable to criticism for using its appeal as the first institution involved in power sharing, while engaging itself in political battles with forces that could not enjoy this status, nor the credibility.

Under the pressure of the events that led to the Mineriads, his political stance has veered with time: from a proponent of Perestroika, Iliescu recast himself as a Western European social democrat. The main debate around the subject of his commitment to such ideals is linked to the special conditions in Romania, and especially to the strong nationalist and autarkic attitude visible within the Ceaușescu regime. Critics have pointed out that, unlike most Communist-to-social democrat changes in the Eastern Bloc, Romania's tended to retain various cornerstones.

Iliescu and U.S. President George W. Bush in 2002

Romania adopted its first post-Communist Constitution in 1991. In 1992, Iliescu won a second term when he received 61% of the vote in the second round. He immediately suspended his NSDF membership; the Constitution does not allow the president to be a formal member of a political party during his term.

1996 presidential campaign

Ion Iliescu and Emil Constantinescu

He ran for a third time in 1996 but, stripped of media monopoly, he lost in the second round to Emil Constantinescu, his second-round opponent in 1992. Over 1,000,000 votes were cancelled, leading to accusations of widespread fraud. Nevertheless, Iliescu conceded defeat within hours of polls closing, making him the only incumbent president to lose a bid for re-election since the end of Communism.

Second term (2000–2004)

Ion Iliescu with Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Indian Prime Minister Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2004

In the 2000 presidential election Iliescu ran again and won in the run-off against the ultra-nationalist Corneliu Vadim Tudor. He began his third term on 20 December of that year, ending on 20 December 2004. The center-right was severely defeated during the 2000 elections due largely to public dissatisfaction with the harsh economic reforms of the previous four years as well as the political instability and infighting of the multiparty coalition. Tudor's extreme views also ensured that most urban voters either abstained or chose Iliescu. The Năstase government, which came to power in this term of Iliescu, continued part of the series of reforms started by the previous governments between 1996 and 2000. During the second term of Ion Iliescu, Romania joined NATO and completed the negotiations for the accession to the European Union. One of the actions of the presidential institution during Ion Iliescu's second term was the establishment of the "International Commission for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania", following diplomatic incidents caused by the Holocaust denial practiced by important figures in the country's leadership. The commission, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, drew up a report on the Holocaust in Romania, report assumed and declared "state document" by Ion Iliescu.

Post-presidency (2004–present)

In the PSD elections of 21 April 2005, Iliescu lost the Party presidency to Mircea Geoană, but was elected as honorary president of the party in 2006, a position without official executive authority in the party.

Ion Iliescu in 2014

In 2009, he appeared in a scene in the film Medal of Honor.

In April 2019, Iliescu was admitted to a cardiological medical center in Bucharest. In September 2023, he was hospitalized in Bucharest.

Awards

• Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, First Class (1971)
• Iliescu was awarded with Azerbaijani Istiglal Order for his contributions to development of Azerbaijan-Romania relations and strategic cooperation between the states by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev on 6 October 2004.
•  Estonia: Collar of the Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana
•  Uruguay: Medal of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay (1996)
•  Slovakia: Grand Cross (or 1st Class) of the Order of the White Double Cross (2002)
•  Croatia: Knight Grand Cross of the Grand Order of King Tomislav ("For outstanding contribution to the promotion of friendship and development co-operation between the Republic of Croatia and the Republic of Romania." – 12 May 2003)
•  Spain: Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Civil Merit – 10 June 2003
•  Italy: Knight Grand Cross with Grand Cordon of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic – 15 October 2003
•  Poland: Order of the White Eagle (2003)
•  Poland: Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (2004)
•  Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant (2004)
•  Romania: Emblema de Onoare al Armatei României ("The Romanian Army's Badge of Honor") – 24 October 2012
•  Serbia and Montenegro: Order of the Yugoslav Great Star (2004)

Electoral history

Presidential elections

See also

In Spanish: Ion Iliescu para niños