POST-REVOLUTION ROMANIA, 1990: Creation of the Democratic Agrarian Party of Romania (PDAR)

The Democratic Agrarian Party of Romania (PDAR) came into being on January 29, 1990 under ruling No. 22 of the Bucharest Municipal Court, as a center political formation with an agrarian doctrine, shows the volume ''Romania, date şi fapte.1989-2009''/Romania, Dates and Facts.1989-2009'' (published by the AGERPRES National News Agency, 2010). PDAR's first National Convention was held on April 11 - 12, 1990, when the party's provisional leading team was elected and the date of the first congress was set for June 21-22, 1991; the latter meeting took place at the Romanian Athenaeum, with over 600 delegates and almost 200 guests attending. A signatory of the Charter for Reform and Democracy, PDAR withdrew from the agreement in January 1992, writes the "Dictionary of Romania's Political Parties, Coalitions and Ethnic Unions" released by the ROMPRES National News Agency in 1993. In the Petre Roman Provisional Government (December 28, 1989 - June 28, 1990) PDAR held the position of Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry, through Nicolae Stefan, while Victor Surdu served as Minister-Secretary of State. PDAR representative Petru Marculescu held the same portfolio between October 16, 1991 - November 19, 1992 in the Theodor Stolojan Government (1991-1992), notes political scientist Cristian Preda in the study "Parties, Votes and Mandates in Romania Elections (1990 - 2012) - "Social Science Open Access Repository" (SSOAR), 2013. Between 1990 and 1992 PDAR absorbed several formations and small parties: the Democratic Party of Agricultural, Industrial and Intellectual Labor; the Romanian Party of National Reconstruction; the Party of National Unity and Dignity; the Democratic Party of the Romanian Countryside Unity; and the Romanian Labor and Social Rights Party. In the local elections of 1992 (the first held after December 1989) PDAR won 4,622 seats of local councilor, 211 seats of county councilor and 232 seats of mayor. At the June 1996 local elections PDAR's tally was 2,351 local councilors, 63 county councilors and 199 mayors. In the first free post-Revolution election held on May 20, 1990, PDAR obtained 1.83 percent of the votes for the Chamber of Deputies (9 seats), but did not make it to the Senate (1.59 percent). The situation in the 1992 elections was reversed, as the PDAR garnered 2.999 percent of the votes for the Chamber of Deputies (falling short of 118 votes to cross the 3 percent electoral threshold), but obtained 3.3 percent of the votes for the Senate - five seats, writes www.cdep.ro. In the 1996 election PDAR ran in an electoral alliance with the Ecological Federation of Romania (FER) and the Romanian Humanist Party (PUR), under the name of the National Agrarian-Humanist-Ecological Center Union, but failed to make it past the 3 pct electoral threshold. The party ceased to exist in 1998, following the merger with the New Romania Party led by Virgil Magureanu, the former head of the Romanian Intelligence Service; the new formation, called the Romanian National Party (PNR), merged in September 2000 with the Party of the Romanian National Unity (PUNR) into the National Alliance Party. PDAR's national leaders were Victor Surdu (1990 - 1997) and Mihai Berca (1997 - 1998), and Nicolae Stefan served as honorary chairman. The Democratic Agrarian Party of Romania defined itself in the '90s as a political formation that brings together people concerned with the Romanian rural milieu, agriculture, forestry, water and the environment. The party presented itself as having "national vocation, its entire activity being shaped in the spirit and around the agrarian doctrine, conceived as a modern doctrine, specific to Romanian relations and traditions, and placing agriculture at the center of economic development, as the only truly viable solution for the progress of the entire society." AGERPRES (Documentary research: Cristian Anghelache, editor: Ionela Gavril; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)