Iliescu reviews his presidential career

Ion Iliescu yesterday presented a review of his presidential career to Parliament, in his last official engagement as president before the start of the election campaign.

Iliescu described his own view of the events of the last fourteen years in Romania, a period dominated by his presence on the political stage. Iliescu presented himself at the end of his mandate as a leftist politician, a supporter of gradual reform and an opponent of harsh economic measures, he lauded the governments he had overseen in his role as president and criticised the cabinets formed by the current opposition. The opposition parties denounced the speech, accusing Iliescu of promoting the PSD party in full election season.

The President said he lamented the delayed reconciliation with King Mihai and the late reconsideration of the Holocaust in Romania, admitting for the first time that “the confused situation in the early ’90s and the political clashes” of that time prevented him from doing this sooner. He also regretted that so much time and energy had been wasted in “dead-end” discussions, such as those between “communists” and “anticommunists”, “workers” and “thinkers”, and “republicans” and “monarchists”.

The President also spoke of the moral duty of Romanians to assume their history, to understand where and why mistakes had been made. He also claimed to have “duly honoured” the dissidents from the communist regime, the anticommunist fighters and the journalists who worked for the Europa Libera (Free Europe) radio station.

Iliescu stressed that the Revolution of 1989 had been led by the people of Romania, reiterating that Romania had rid itself of totalitarianism through the “work of the Romanian people”, not by means of a coup. Of all the controversial events that occurred during his presidency, he said nothing of the arrival of the miners in Bucharest in the 1990s.

As president of Romania and leader of the main opposition party in 1996-2000, Ion Iliescu felt he had been a “servant of public interest, of citizen rights and freedoms.”
mirela.luca@zf.ro