Romanian Parties and Post-Communist Democracy

This chapter aims to map the features that make up the Romanian party politics three decades after the collapse of the communist regime. The analysis starts by identifying the main stages in the development of Romanian party politics, from the extreme fluidity of the early 1990s to the progressive closure of the party system starting in the 2000s. On the one side, this stabilization has been equated to a predictable competition for government offices and regular inter-party relations; on the other, the Romanian low number of parliamentary political parties was increasingly criticized for hampering the possibilities for a renewed supply of parties, reinforcing corruption and collusive practices, and, implicitly, generating a limited turnover in power. On this ground, different organizations and various political entrepreneurs have voiced the need to defend traditional values in politics; the 2020 Romanian general elections brought a relevant populist radical right populist party to Parliament. Beyond this electoral success, the AUR’s arrival to national politics has given more visibility to the illiberal traits of politics and shed light on the vulnerability of the Romanian post-communist democracy.