Editing Emil Constantinescu (section)

== Presidency (1996–2000) ==
[[File:Econst.jpg|thumb|180px|Emil Constantinescu and [[Bill Clinton]] in [[Bucharest]] during the American President's 1997 visit to the Romanian capital in which Clinton declared Romania "free of communism".]]
In 1996, he competed once again for the presidency as the CDR's candidate and managed to defeat Iliescu in the second round, securing a victory by a margin of roughly 10%. CDR's success in the [[1996 Romanian general election|1996 general election]] marked the first [[peaceful transition of power]] in post-1989 Romania. On the day he took office, he suspended his membership in the PNȚ-CD, as the [[Constitution of Romania|Constitution]] precludes a president holding formal membership of a political party during his term(s).

Throughout his sole four-year term, Constantinescu struggled with the ineffective implementation of the processes of [[privatization]], which, bogged down by excessive bureaucracy, increased unemployment and poverty in the short term. After another two [[Mineriad]]s which took place in 1999 (one in [[January 1999 Mineriad|January]] and the other in [[February 1999 Mineriad|February]]), culminating with the arrest of [[Miron Cozma]], the remainder of his term suffered a political crisis between the majority parties that, at the time, formed the governing coalition (i.e. CDR, PD, PSDR, and UDMR/RMDSZ). The country was further damaged by a drought in 2000. At the end of his term in 2000, he decided not to run for re-election, stating that the system had defeated him.

One of the last gestures made as president of Romania was the pardon of Ion Coman, the one who had led the repression of the [[Romanian Revolution|1989 revolution]] in [[Timișoara]].{{citation needed|date=May 2023}}