With a 94% turnout and 85% of the vote in elections last week, President-elect Ion Iliescu of Romania was almost in the same league as his predecessor, Nicolae Ceausescu, the Communist tyrant who posted similar landslides in pro forma balloting. But this was a free election, complete with opposition candidates and Western observers. That must have made Iliescu's victory all the sweeter, despite opposition allegations of ballot-box fraud, voter intimidation and media monopolization by his incumbent National Salvation Front.
Iliescu's background as a former senior Communist Party official failed to outweigh the personal popularity he has won since the Front came...
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