Aspects of transition to Democracy: the cases of Romania and Bulgaria

Abstract

The fall of the Berlin wall in the autumn of 1989 sent the message that the end of communist rule in Central and Eastern Europe was very near after almost 45 years in the region. So was the case for Romania and Bulgaria too. Romania was governed by the dictator Ceausescu who together with the notorious Securitate (the secret police) had established probably the most repressive regime against its population among all the regimes in Eastern Europe. Along with his failed policies had caused a tremendous deterioration of living standards in the Romanian people especially during the 80’s. After bloody demonstrations against the regime in Timisoara and in other cities, a new group of politicians with Ion Iliescu as the leader, did a coup d’ etat, executed Ceausescu and took over the leadership. Bulgaria was ruled by Todor Zhivkov, a Stalinist politician, who remained extremely loyal to the Soviet Union for all of his tenure. Rapid changes began for Bulgaria with the change of the leadership in Soviet Union and the elevation in power of Gorbachev, a reform-minded politician. Soon enough, Zhivkov ran into trouble. Moreover, his discrimination policies against the Turkish minority with the assimilation campaign who reached its peak in 1989 and the ongoing economic hardship of the Bulgarians pushed a group of reformer communists to operate a coup against him. These events initiated the transition to democracy in Romania and in Bulgaria.