Conservative Party (Romania)
Encyclopedia
The Conservative Party of Romania
is a political party formed in 1991, after the fall of Communism
, under the name of the Romanian Humanist Party (Partidul Umanist Român, PUR). From 2005 until December 3, 2006, the party was a junior member of the ruling coalition. The party took its present name on 7 May 2005.
The current Conservative Party states it promotes tradition, family, social solidarity, European integration
, and a nationalism
without chauvinism. It claims the heritage of the former historical Romanian Conservative Party, one of the two main political forces in Romania before the First World War
. There is no direct, uninterrupted link between the two parties — the historical Conservative Party was dissolved after World War I — but the current party sustains and embraces the values of the historical one.
In 2005, the party organized a march "for family values
" as a reaction to the Bucharest GayFest
pride parade. The party is opposed to the legalisation of same-sex marriage
, even though Octavian Petrovici, the vice-president of the party's Bucharest division, stated that the party "respects the choice" of same-sex couples.
The party also supports the introduction of compulsory religious education in Romanian schools (currently, such classes are optional).
. It changed its name in 2005 to reflect a shift in its ideology from centrist
politics to more conservative, right-wing
politics. The party was founded and continues to be led by Dan Voiculescu
, a businessman who formally gave control of his companies to relatives. Voiculescu is the founder and former owner of an important media
chain comprising among others the top-ranking TV channel Antena 1 and the newspapers Jurnalul Naţional
and Gazeta Sporturilor
. According to CNA (the state agency for broadcast licencing), he retains significant influence in the Romanian mass media, either through his foundation or through his family.
The party generally supports the interests of the Romanian middle class
and especially those of small and middle-size business owners, and has performed better electorally at a local level than at a national level. The PUR formed a coalition with the PDSR (now the PSD
), which won the 2000 elections. The PUR took part in the government under the condition of having the opportunity to promote the interests of its electorate. A Ministry for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises was thus formed, under the leadership of a PUR representative. After two years, the senior partner of the coalition, the PDSR, decided to suppress this Ministry, and consequently the PUR, no longer being able to represent its electorate, withdrew from the government.
In the local elections of June 2004, the PUR obtained 6% of the votes and, among others, managed to win in one important city, Bacău
. During this election, the party strongly attacked the PSD and its alleged system of "local barons". After the surprising alliance of PUR with PSD, Romeo Stavarache
, the mayor of Bacău, switched to the National Liberal Party
after a disagreement with Voiculescu, saying that he found it impossible to cooperate with the "local barons" he had struggled to defeat.
In the parliamentary elections of November 2004 the PUR again formed an electoral alliance with the Social Democratic Party
(PSD). This was a surprising move, as the PUR had strongly attacked the PSD in the June local elections. However, it ensured that the PUR would be able to enter the parliament on the coattails of the much larger party. The elections gave a slight parliamentary plurality to the PSD-PUR coalition, while the new president Traian Băsescu
came from the other major competing coalition, the DA (Justice and Truth
), formed by the Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party. This situation threatened a major political crisis, the President being unwilling to appoint a prime minister from the slightly larger parliamentary bloc, and the DA candidate for prime minister liable not to be ratified by the Parliament, which would have resulted in new parliamentary elections.
Although initial talks assured the support of PUR for the Justice and Truth, without them joining the government, the election of PSD members Adrian Năstase
and Nicolae Văcăroiu
as Heads of Chambers in the Romanian Parliament, prompted the members of DA to invite PUR to join the government. Although he had been the main advocate of this solution and had strongly pleaded for it, president Băsescu later qualified the solution as "immoral". In return, the conservatives labelled the President as a "hypocrite".
Voiculescu has admitted having been a collaborator with the Securitate, Romania's communist-era internal intelligence service, after information to this effect was released publicly by Romania's National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives. He has actively denied that his collaboration was harmful to any individual. He was initially named to be a Vice Premier in the government of Prime Minister of Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu
but was ultimately not allowed to take the position because of his involvement with the former intelligence service.
On May 7, 2005 the party took its present name as the Conservative Party, after a change of doctrine from social liberalism
to a more conservative stance. However, its doctrine is still unclear, since it supports certain leftist doctrines, such as increasing taxes for companies.
On 12 February 2006, the Romanian National Unity Party
was absorbed into the Conservative Party.
On December 3, 2006, the party quit the governing coalition and went into opposition. It currently polls at less than three per cent in opinion polls, and is unlikely to enter parliament in 2008's general election unless it enters into another pact with either the PSD (considered unlikely) or the PNL.
On 17 April 2008, the Social Democratic Party
and the Conservative Party announced they would form a political alliance for the 2008 local elections
.
In the Romanian legislative election, 2008
, the Conservative Party also took part in an alliance with Social Democrats, and won 1 seat in the Senate and 4 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Before that, the Conservatives had proposed the Greater Romania Party
(PRM) to form an alliance. The PRM leader emphatically rejected the offer, as it was presumed that PRM would be absorbed by the Conservative Party. Similarly, the party ran in the European Parliament election, 2009 (Romania)
in a coalition with the Social Democrats, called National Union PSD+PC, and won 1 seat (George Sabin Cutaş).
On 5 February 2010, the PC formed the Social Liberal Union
political alliance along with the Social Democratic Party
and National Liberal Party
.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
is a political party formed in 1991, after the fall of Communism
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, under the name of the Romanian Humanist Party (Partidul Umanist Român, PUR). From 2005 until December 3, 2006, the party was a junior member of the ruling coalition. The party took its present name on 7 May 2005.
The current Conservative Party states it promotes tradition, family, social solidarity, European integration
European integration
European integration is the process of industrial, political, legal, economic integration of states wholly or partially in Europe...
, and a nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
without chauvinism. It claims the heritage of the former historical Romanian Conservative Party, one of the two main political forces in Romania before the First World War
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. There is no direct, uninterrupted link between the two parties — the historical Conservative Party was dissolved after World War I — but the current party sustains and embraces the values of the historical one.
In 2005, the party organized a march "for family values
Family values
Family values are political and social beliefs that hold the nuclear family to be the essential ethical and moral unit of society. Familialism is the ideology that promotes the family and its values as an institution....
" as a reaction to the Bucharest GayFest
GayFest
GayFest is the annual gay pride festival of Bucharest, Romania, which first took place in 2004 and now occurs in May-June of each year, lasting for nearly a week. It is organised by the non-profit organisation ACCEPT, the country's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights organisation...
pride parade. The party is opposed to the legalisation of same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage in Romania
Romania does not recognise same-sex unions, either in the form of same-sex marriage or civil unions.-2004 election campaign:Romanian President Traian Băsescu said during his electoral campaign of late 2004 that he sees nothing wrong with same sex marriage...
, even though Octavian Petrovici, the vice-president of the party's Bucharest division, stated that the party "respects the choice" of same-sex couples.
The party also supports the introduction of compulsory religious education in Romanian schools (currently, such classes are optional).
History
The Conservative Party was founded as the Romanian Humanist Party (PUR) on December 18, 1991 and was for a time a member of the Humanist InternationalHumanist International
The Humanist International is a consortium of Humanist political parties, founded in Florence, Italy, on January 4, 1989, by the approval of foundational documents and statutes by over 40 Humanist Parties from around the world...
. It changed its name in 2005 to reflect a shift in its ideology from centrist
Centrism
In politics, centrism is the ideal or the practice of promoting policies that lie different from the standard political left and political right. Most commonly, this is visualized as part of the one-dimensional political spectrum of left-right politics, with centrism landing in the middle between...
politics to more conservative, right-wing
Right-wing politics
In politics, Right, right-wing and rightist generally refer to support for a hierarchical society justified on the basis of an appeal to natural law or tradition. To varying degrees, the Right rejects the egalitarian objectives of left-wing politics, claiming that the imposition of equality is...
politics. The party was founded and continues to be led by Dan Voiculescu
Dan Voiculescu
Dan Voiculescu is a Romanian politician and former business man. He is the Vicepresident of the Romanian Senate and founding president of the Conservative Party in Romania. ....
, a businessman who formally gave control of his companies to relatives. Voiculescu is the founder and former owner of an important media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
chain comprising among others the top-ranking TV channel Antena 1 and the newspapers Jurnalul Naţional
Jurnalul National
Jurnalul Naţional is a Romanian newspaper, part of the Intact media group led by Dan Voiculescu, which also includes the popular TV station Antena 1....
and Gazeta Sporturilor
Gazeta Sporturilor
Gazeta Sporturilor is a daily newspaper in Romania, and the country's largest and most read sports-related publication...
. According to CNA (the state agency for broadcast licencing), he retains significant influence in the Romanian mass media, either through his foundation or through his family.
The party generally supports the interests of the Romanian middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
and especially those of small and middle-size business owners, and has performed better electorally at a local level than at a national level. The PUR formed a coalition with the PDSR (now the PSD
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...
), which won the 2000 elections. The PUR took part in the government under the condition of having the opportunity to promote the interests of its electorate. A Ministry for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises was thus formed, under the leadership of a PUR representative. After two years, the senior partner of the coalition, the PDSR, decided to suppress this Ministry, and consequently the PUR, no longer being able to represent its electorate, withdrew from the government.
In the local elections of June 2004, the PUR obtained 6% of the votes and, among others, managed to win in one important city, Bacău
Bacau
Bacău is the main city in Bacău County, Romania. It covers a land surface of 43 km², and, as of January 1, 2009, has an estimated population of 177,087. The city is situated in the historical region of Moldavia, at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains, and on the Bistriţa River...
. During this election, the party strongly attacked the PSD and its alleged system of "local barons". After the surprising alliance of PUR with PSD, Romeo Stavarache
Romeo Stavarache
Romeo Stavarache is the mayor of Bacău, Romania. In 2004, Stavarache succeeded in defeating one of the most powerful local politicians, Dumitru Sechelariu, who had been mayor there since 1996...
, the mayor of Bacău, switched to the National Liberal Party
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
after a disagreement with Voiculescu, saying that he found it impossible to cooperate with the "local barons" he had struggled to defeat.
In the parliamentary elections of November 2004 the PUR again formed an electoral alliance with the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...
(PSD). This was a surprising move, as the PUR had strongly attacked the PSD in the June local elections. However, it ensured that the PUR would be able to enter the parliament on the coattails of the much larger party. The elections gave a slight parliamentary plurality to the PSD-PUR coalition, while the new president Traian Băsescu
Traian Basescu
Traian Băsescu is the current President of Romania. After serving as the mayor of Bucharest from June 2000 until December 2004, he was elected president in the Romanian Presidential Elections of 2004 and inaugurated on December 20, 2004...
came from the other major competing coalition, the DA (Justice and Truth
Justice and Truth
The Justice and Truth Alliance was a political alliance comprising two political parties in Romania: the centre-right liberal National Liberal Party and the initially social-democrat Democratic Party , which later switched to center-right ideology.As the political formation with the largest...
), formed by the Democratic Party and the National Liberal Party. This situation threatened a major political crisis, the President being unwilling to appoint a prime minister from the slightly larger parliamentary bloc, and the DA candidate for prime minister liable not to be ratified by the Parliament, which would have resulted in new parliamentary elections.
Although initial talks assured the support of PUR for the Justice and Truth, without them joining the government, the election of PSD members Adrian Năstase
Adrian Nastase
Adrian Năstase is a Romanian politician who was the Prime Minister of Romania from December 2000 to December 2004.He competed as the Social Democratic Party candidate in the 2004 presidential election, but was defeated by centre-right Justice and Truth Alliance candidate Traian Băsescu.He was...
and Nicolae Văcăroiu
Nicolae Vacaroiu
Nicolae Văcăroiu is a Romanian politician, member of the Social Democratic Party, who served as Prime Minister between 1992 and 1996. Before the 1989 Revolution he worked at the Committee for State Planning, together with Theodor Stolojan....
as Heads of Chambers in the Romanian Parliament, prompted the members of DA to invite PUR to join the government. Although he had been the main advocate of this solution and had strongly pleaded for it, president Băsescu later qualified the solution as "immoral". In return, the conservatives labelled the President as a "hypocrite".
Voiculescu has admitted having been a collaborator with the Securitate, Romania's communist-era internal intelligence service, after information to this effect was released publicly by Romania's National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives. He has actively denied that his collaboration was harmful to any individual. He was initially named to be a Vice Premier in the government of Prime Minister of Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu
Calin Popescu-Tariceanu
Călin Constantin Anton Popescu-Tăriceanu is a Romanian politician. He was the Prime Minister of Romania between 29 December 2004 and 22 December 2008...
but was ultimately not allowed to take the position because of his involvement with the former intelligence service.
On May 7, 2005 the party took its present name as the Conservative Party, after a change of doctrine from social liberalism
Social liberalism
Social liberalism is the belief that liberalism should include social justice. It differs from classical liberalism in that it believes the legitimate role of the state includes addressing economic and social issues such as unemployment, health care, and education while simultaneously expanding...
to a more conservative stance. However, its doctrine is still unclear, since it supports certain leftist doctrines, such as increasing taxes for companies.
On 12 February 2006, the Romanian National Unity Party
Romanian National Unity Party
The Romanian National Unity Party was a political party in Romania between 1990 and 2006.PUNR was the first nationalist party in post-Communist Romania, created in 1990....
was absorbed into the Conservative Party.
On December 3, 2006, the party quit the governing coalition and went into opposition. It currently polls at less than three per cent in opinion polls, and is unlikely to enter parliament in 2008's general election unless it enters into another pact with either the PSD (considered unlikely) or the PNL.
On 17 April 2008, the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...
and the Conservative Party announced they would form a political alliance for the 2008 local elections
Romanian local election, 2008
Local elections were held in Romania on June 1, 2008, with a runoff for mayors on June 15, 2008.On June 1 where elected:* all the villages, communes, cities, and municipal cluncils , and the Sectors Local Councils of Bucharest...
.
In the Romanian legislative election, 2008
Romanian legislative election, 2008
Legislative elections were held in Romania on November 30, 2008. The Democratic Liberal Party won most seats in both the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, although the alliance headed by the Social Democratic Party won a fractionally higher vote share.-Electoral System:President Traian Băsescu...
, the Conservative Party also took part in an alliance with Social Democrats, and won 1 seat in the Senate and 4 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. Before that, the Conservatives had proposed the Greater Romania Party
Greater Romania Party
The Greater Romania Party is a Romanian radical right-wing, ultra-nationalist political party, led by Corneliu Vadim Tudor. The party is sometimes referred to in English as the Great Romania Party....
(PRM) to form an alliance. The PRM leader emphatically rejected the offer, as it was presumed that PRM would be absorbed by the Conservative Party. Similarly, the party ran in the European Parliament election, 2009 (Romania)
European Parliament election, 2009 (Romania)
The European Parliament election of 2009 in Romania is the election of the delegation from Romania to the European Parliament in 2009.-Candidates and elected MEPs:Among those expected to take up seats are :...
in a coalition with the Social Democrats, called National Union PSD+PC, and won 1 seat (George Sabin Cutaş).
On 5 February 2010, the PC formed the Social Liberal Union
Social-Liberal Union
The Social-Liberal Union is a Romanian political alliance formed on 5 February 2011 between three opposition parties, the Social Democratic Party, and the Center-Right Alliance made of the National Liberal Party and the Conservative Party....
political alliance along with the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...
and National Liberal Party
National Liberal Party (Romania)
The National Liberal Party , abbreviated to PNL, is a centre-right liberal party in Romania. It is the third-largest party in the Romanian Parliament, with 53 seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 22 in the Senate: behind the centre-right Democratic Liberal Party and the centre-left Social...
.
Notable members
- Dan VoiculescuDan VoiculescuDan Voiculescu is a Romanian politician and former business man. He is the Vicepresident of the Romanian Senate and founding president of the Conservative Party in Romania. ....
- founder and former president - Codruţ ŞereşCodruţ ŞereşIoan-Codruţ Şereş is a Romanian engineer and politician. A member of the Conservative Party , he was a member of the Romanian Senate for Maramureş County from 2004 to 2008...
- Gheorghe Copos
External links
- Conservative Party official site