In the late 1980s, however, things began to shift. While Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pursued reformist policies, Ceaușescu tried to block any contagion. He had become an obsolete leftover of the Stalinist era, and Romanians grew weary of the insane cult of personality surrounding him and his wife. As his dictatorship grew increasingly erratic, many in the bureaucracy considered Iliescu as a possible alternative to “dynastic Communism.”
In December 1989, popular uprisings erupted across the country, first in the western city of Timișoara, then in Bucharest. But this was not a velvet revolution. Amid a military crackdown, the army and secret police forces shot dozens of anti-regime protesters over the following days. And on Dec. 22, Iliescu addressed the crowds on television, announcing the formation of the National Salvation Front.
After the Ceaușescus were captured, tried and executed a few days later, Romanians were convinced this was the beginning of a democratic revolution. But in fact, it was the combination of a spontaneous popular revolt and an intraparty putsch — and Iliescu was the beneficiary of both.

Iliescu initially played the benevolent, open-minded liberalizer. But he also made sure that merging pluralist forces — including democratic parties and civil society associations — wouldn’t be allowed to challenge the bureaucracy’s domination. His response to the anticommunist opposition was neurotic, panicked and intolerant.
Then, in June 1990, after his party won the country’s first democratic elections, he used forces outside the law to destroy growing dissent, mobilizing Jiu Valley coalminers to violently suppress anti-government protests. Romania again became a pariah on the international stage. And while Iliescu tried to erase the memory of those terrible events — both the violent chaos surrounding Ceaușescu’s ouster and the brutal crackdown against civilians that followed — they would forever mark his career.
After losing the presidency in 1995, Iliescu finally recognized democratic governance and took charge of the parliamentary opposition. He was again elected in 2000, his second presidential term largely seen as one of Western integration. In 2003, Romania entered NATO, and he played a significant role in the country’s EU accession, which was finalized in 2007.