Iliescu, Ion

Iliescu, Ion (b. 3 Mar. 1930). President of Romania 1989–96, 2000–  Born in Olenita, he joined the Communist Party at the age of 15 and studied at Moscow University to become an electrical engineer (1950–3). Back in Romania, in 1956–60 he became chairman of the Communist Students' League and, after further work for the Communist Party, he became first secretary of the Youth League (1967–70), and then Secretary for Propaganda, 1971. In the same year he fell out with Ceausescu and was demoted to the provinces. In 1979 he was appointed head of the National Water Council, with a seat in Ceausescu's Council of State. He was widely tipped as a successor to Ceausescu, but perhaps because of this he was dismissed in 1984, deprived of party membership, and made director of a publishing company. A student colleague of Gorbachev, he advocated the introduction of reform (perestroika>) in 1987. On 22 December 1989 he resurfaced to become head of the National Salvation Front (NSF). In elections on 20 May 1990 he was confirmed as President with 85 per cent of the vote, and in October 1992 with over 60 per cent of the vote, after considerable intimidation and violence. He was weakened by a split of the NSF in 1992, and thereafter presided over the Democratic National Salvation Front. This did little to endanger his position, as he continued to profit from the ongoing fragmentation and disunity of his opposition. He was succeeded in office by Emil Constantinescu. In 2000, he was re-elected in the run-off elections with the votes of his centre-right opponents, in order to prevent the success of his rival, the neo-Fascist Vadim Tudor.