Conservative Party Partidul Conservator | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Daniel Constantin |
| Secretary-General | Damian Florea |
| Founder | Dan Voiculescu |
| Founded | 18 December 1991 (1991-12-18) |
| Dissolved | 19 June 2015 |
| Preceded by | Conservative Party (claimed, not legal predecessor)[1] |
| Merged into | Alliance of Liberals and Democrats |
| Succeeded by | Social Liberal Humanist Party (faction) |
| Headquarters | Calea Victoriei, 118 Bucharest |
| Membership(2014) | 55,000[2] |
| Ideology | Social conservatism[3] National conservatism[4] Liberal conservatism[5] Before 2005: Humanism Social liberalism[6] Social democracy[7] |
| Political position | Centre-right Before 2005: Centre |
| National affiliation | Social Democratic Pole of Romania (2000–03) National Union (2004) Alliance PSD+PC (2008–10) Centre Right Alliance (2010–13) Social Liberal Union (2010–14) Social Democratic Union (2014–15) |
| European affiliation | European People's Party[8] |
| European Parliament group | Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats |
| Colours | Blue |
| Website | |
| www | |
TheConservative Party (Romanian:Partidul Conservator, PC) was aconservative[3]political party inRomania. It was founded in 1991, approximately two years after thefall of Communism in Romania, originally under the nameRomanian Humanist Party (Romanian:Partidul Umanist Român, PUR). From 2005 until 3 December 2006,[9] the party was a junior member of theGovernment of Romania. The party adopted the nameConservative Party on 7 May 2005. Subsequently, a little bit more than a decade after, more specifically in June 2015, it merged with theLiberal Reformist Party (PLR) to form theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE).
The Conservative Party (PC) stated that it promoted tradition, family, social solidarity,European integration, and anationalism without chauvinism. It claimed the heritage of the historicalRomanian Conservative Party, one of the two main political forces in Romania before theFirst World War. There was no direct, uninterrupted link between the two parties—the historical Conservative Party was dissolved after World War I—but the modern party sustained and embraced the values of the historical one.
The Conservative Party was founded as the Romanian Humanist Party (PUR) on 18 December 1991 and was for a time a member of theHumanist International. It changed its name in 2005 to reflect a shift in its ideology fromcentrist politics to more conservative,right-wing politics. The party was founded by former well knownSecuritatea collaborator and informerDan Voiculescu, a post-1989 wealthy businessman who formally gave control of his companies to relatives. Voiculescu was the founder and former owner of an importantmedia chain comprising among others the top-ranking TV channelAntena 1 and the newspapersJurnalul Naţional andGazeta Sporturilor. According to CNA (the state agency for broadcast licensing), he retains significant influence in the Romanian mass media, either through his foundation or through his family.[10]
The party generally supported the interests of the Romanianmiddle class and especially those of small and middle-size business owners, and performed better electorally at a local level than at a national level. The PUR formed a coalition with the PDSR (now theSocial Democratic Party), which won the2000 general election. 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 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 theNational Liberal Party (PNL) after a disagreement with Voiculescu, saying that he found it impossible to cooperate with the "local barons" he had struggled to defeat.[11]
In the2004 parliamentary election the PUR again formed an electoral alliance with the 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 presidentTraian Băsescu came from the other major competing coalition, theJustice and Truth Alliance (DA), formed by the PNL andDemocratic Party (PD). 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 membersAdrian Năstase andNicolae 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".[12][13]
Voiculescu has admitted having been a collaborator with theSecuritate, 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.[14] He was initially named to be a Vice Premier in the government of Prime Minister ofCălin Popescu-Tăriceanu but was ultimately not allowed to take the position because of his involvement with the former intelligence service.[15][16]
On 7 May 2005, the party adopted the nameConservative Party to reflect a change of doctrine from centrism to a more conservative stance. However, its ideology remained fluid, since it supported certain leftist positions, such as increasing corporate taxation.
In 2005, the party organised a march "forfamily values" as a reaction toBucharest Pride. The party was opposed to the legalisation ofsame-sex marriage, even though Octavian Petrovici, a vice-president of the party's Bucharest division, stated in 2006 that the party "respects the choice" of same-sex couples.[17]
The party also supported the introduction of compulsory religious education in Romanian schools (currently, such classes are optional).[18]
On 12 February 2006, theRomanian National Unity Party was absorbed into the Conservative Party.[19]
On 3 December 2006, the party quit the governing coalition and went into opposition. It continued to perform poorly in opinion polls and faced the prospect of being unlikely to enter parliament at the2008 general election unless it entered into another pact with either the PSD or the PNL.
On 17 April 2008, theSocial Democratic Party and the Conservative Party announced they would form a political alliance for the2008 local election.[20]
In the2008 legislative election, the Conservative Party also took part in an alliance with PSD, and won 1 seat in the Senate and 4 seats in the Chamber of Deputies.[21] Before that, the Conservatives had proposed an alliance with theGreater Romania Party (PRM). The PRM leader emphatically rejected the offer, as it was presumed that PRM would be absorbed by the Conservative Party.[22] Similarly, the party ran in the2009 European election in a coalition with the PSD, calledNational Union PSD+PC, and won 1 MEP seat (George Sabin Cutaș).
On 5 February 2011, the PC joined theSocial Liberal Union (USL) along with the PSD and PNL.[23][24] The USL dissolved on 25 February 2014 upon the exit of the PNL from the alliance.[25]
On 19 June 2015, the Conservative Party merged with theLiberal Reformist Party (PLR) to form theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) party.[26][27]
| Election | Chamber | Senate | Position | Aftermath | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | % | Seats | Votes | % | Seats | |||
| 1992 | 22,908 | 0.21 | 0 / 341 | 16,484 | 0.15 | 0 / 143 | 25th (as PUR) | Extra-parliamentary supporting the government |
| 1996 | 106,069 | 0.87 | 0 / 343 | 118,859 | 0.97 | 0 / 143 | 12th (within UNC)1 | Extra-parliamentary opposition |
| 2000 | 3,968,464 | 36.61 | 6 / 345 | 4,040,212 | 37.09 | 4 / 140 | 1st (withinPDSR)2 | PDSR minority government (withUDMR support) |
| 2004 | 3,730,352 | 36.61 | 19 / 332 | 3,798,607 | 36.30 | 11 / 137 | 1st (withinPSD+PUR)3 | DA-PUR4-UDMR government (until April 2007) |
| Opposition to a minorityPNL-UDMR government | ||||||||
| 2008 | 2,279,449 | 33.10 | 4 / 334 | 2,352,968 | 34.16 | 1 / 137 | 2nd (withinPSD+PC)5 | Opposition toPDL-PSD government (until December 2009) |
| Opposition toPDL-UNPR-UDMR (until May 2012) | ||||||||
| USL government (until December 2012) | ||||||||
| 2012 | 4,344,288 | 58.63 | 13 / 412 | 4,457,526 | 60.10 | 8 / 176 | 1st (withinUSL)6 | USL government (until March 2014) |
| PSD-UNPR-UDMR-PC government (until December 2014) | ||||||||
| PSD-UNPR-ALDE7 government (until November 2015) | ||||||||
| SupportingCioloș Cabinet (Ind.) | ||||||||
Notes:
1National Union of the Centre (UNC) members:PDAR,MER, and PUR.
2Social Democratic Pole of Romania members:PDSR (59 senators and 139 deputies),PSDR (2 senators and 10 deputies), and PUR (4 senators and 6 deputies).
3National Union PSD+PUR members:PSD (46 senators and 113 deputies) and PUR (11 senators and 19 deputies).
4Soon after the elections, PUR broke the alliance and switched sides, joiningJustice and Truth Alliance (DA).
5Alliance PSD+PC members:PSD (48 senators and 110 deputies) and PC (1 senator and 4 deputies).
6USL was an alliance of two smaller alliances:Centre Left Alliance (between PSD andUNPR) andCentre Right Alliance (betweenPNL and PC).Centre Left Alliance:PSD (58 senators and 149 deputies) andUNPR (5 senators and 10 deputies);Centre Right Alliance:PNL (51 senators and 101 deputies) and PC (8 senators and 13 deputies).
7ALDE was created in June 2015 from a merger ofPLR (a splinter ofPNL) and PC.
| Election | Candidate | First round | Second round | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Votes | Percentage | Position | Votes | Percentage | Position | ||
| 1996 | Ion Pop de Popa | 59,752 | 0.5% | 10th | |||
| 2000 | Ion Iliescu1 | 4,076,273 | 36.4% | 1st | 6,696,623 | 66.8% | 1st |
| 2004 | Adrian Năstase2 | 4,278,864 | 40.9% | 1st | 4,881,520 | 48.8% | 2nd |
| 2014 | Victor Ponta3 | 3,836,093 | 40.4% | 1st | 5,264,383 | 45.6% | 2nd |
Notes:
1Ion Iliescu was a member ofPDSR, but endorsed bySocial Democratic Pole of Romania (same acronym as the main party: PDSR), an alliance made ofPDSR,PSDR, and PC.
2Adrian Năstase was a member ofPSD, but endorsed byNational Union PSD+PUR, an alliance made ofPSD and PC.
3Victor Ponta was a member ofPSD, but endorsed by an alliance made ofPSD,UNPR, and PC.
| Election | Votes | Percentage | MEPs | Position | EU Party | EP Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 150,385 | 2.93% | 0 / 35 | 9th | ALDE | — |
| 2009 | 1,504,218 | 31.07% | 1 / 33 | 1st (withinPSD+PC)1 | PES | S&D |
| 2014 | 2,093,237 | 37.60% | 2 / 32 | 1st (within USD)2 | PES | S&D |
Notes:
1Alliance PSD+PC members:PSD (10 MEPs) and PC.
2Social Democratic Union (USD) members:PSD (12 MEPs), PC, andUNPR (2 MEPs).
