Creation The PLS began existence shortly after the
December 1989 revolution, which toppled the
communist regime and restored multiparty democracy. It was founded by editorial cartoonist
Octavian Andronic, with a manifesto published on February 6, 1990 in
Libertatea daily; literary critic
Ștefan Cazimir adhered "by phone" on February 7. The name was adapted from
Ion Luca Caragiale's comedy
O scrisoare pierdută (1884), which Andronic had just watched on
Romanian Television, in the
Liviu Ciulei adaptation. One of the main principles of the party was granting the status of honorary membership to anyone who changed their allegiance from one political party to another. had had a political involvement with the
Romanian Communist Party and, earlier, the
Union of Communist Youth, to which he adhered . In December, he had been caught up in the revolutionary events, first as an unwilling participant in the communist counter-manifestation, then as a supporter of the street movement in
Bucharest. During January, Cazimir pondered entering politics as an independent, promising his constituents to "read out from Caragiale as often as possible". Looking part on the first post-revolutionary years in 2010, philologist Mona Momescu argues that the abundance of references to Caragiale—present with both the PLS as a "literary party" and the unrelated humor magazine,
Academia Cațavencu—showed that Romanians had not yet abandoned the practice of "cultural resistance", which had been favored by communist-era dissidents. Due to its literary pedigree leading back to the 1880s, the PLS called itself an "historic party". later changed to "the drawing of a child biting on a flower" Tributes for the writer extended into other areas of party activity—including the PLS motto,
Caragiale e cu noi! ("Caragiale is with us!"). Reviving Cațavencu's rhetoric, perceived enemies of the party where addressed as
reprobabili ("detestable people"), and allies as
venerabili or
stimabili ("venerable" or "esteemed people"). The PLS soon had embryonic local chapters, or "initiative committees"—economist Eugen Bâlc presided over one such unit in
Sălaj County.
1990 performance and controversy Soon after its official registration on March 1, For a while, the PLS was attractive to intellectuals who had come to resent the FSN, such as the literary historian
Alexandru Călinescu (who joined the party because he intended to highlight the "comedy" of Romanian politics) and theatrical director
Bogdan Ulmu. Cazimir himself was critical of the FSN and its leader
Ion Iliescu, establishing contacts with the
Golaniad protest movement (named after
golani, "hoodlums", the word used by Iliescu to describe his opponents). As he noted in an April 1990 interview with academic
George Pruteanu, he considered himself a "veteran hoodlum" (
golan veteran), and suggested that the anti-FSN movement was "
too numerous not to be taken into account" (Cazimir's emphasis); according to Pruteanu's marginal comments, part of this statement may have been sarcastic. The PLS received around 0.3% of the vote in both the Senate and
Chamber of Deputies elections. Although it failed to win any senatorial mandates, it took a single seat in the Chamber, which went to Cazimir. In his early speeches at Cervantes, Cazimir had joked that they only ran in elections "because I was tired of things going smooth." In November 1991, columnist
Cornel Nistorescu proposed that Cazimir may have taken his seat through electoral fraud carried out by the FSN, and that his activity was meant to glamorize
political apathy; this view was endorsed by the staff writers at
România Literară, who called Cazimir and his followers the "humorless humorists". Also at
România Literară, columnist
Alex. Ștefănescu, a member of the opposition
National Peasants' Party (PNȚCD), saw it as a "sociological oddity" that "a parody of a party was taken seriously by the voters". Journalist George Baltac believes that the PLS "deliberately" helped the FSN to fragment the PNȚCD's voting weight with "an explosion of minuscule parties." He notes that Cazimir, as a "left-wing intellectual", had a personal relationship with Iliescu. In a 2006 piece, writer Cătălin Mihuleac described the PLS doctrines as an "idiotic jest" (
hlizeala idioată), arguing that Caragiale would have never approved of it; he described Cazimir and his group as a toxic influence on Romanian politics. Late that year,
Theodor Stolojan, the
Prime Minister-designate, held talks with all parliamentary parties, including the PLS, in an effort to secure backing for
his own government team. His move reportedly angered the larger parties. Although the legislation updated in 1992 provided an
election threshold, which harmed its chances, and was acclaimed by independent observers for the high quality of its recruitment base: 14 of the candidates were from the various liberal arts, including four journalists. The PLS also endorsed Tudor Popescu as its candidate for
Bucharest Mayor. In the end, it elected several councilors throughout the country, and only one at Bucharest. who managed to obtain a seat. Mayoral elections also took place at
Tîrgu Mureș in April 1992. In preparation for these, the PLS joined an electoral pact, or "Mureș Democratic Alliance", alongside the FSN (now opposing Stolojan), the PNȚCD, the
National Unity Party, the
Democratic Agrarianists, the
Democratic Ecologists, the
Union of the Roma, and other groups; this was designed to block out a perceived partnership between government and the
Democratic Alliance of Hungarians, at a time when the latter was dominating city politics. In the
presidential and parliamentary elections of September, Iliescu tried out for a second term as
President of Romania, with backing from the
Democratic National Salvation Front (FDSN). His ticket was also endorsed by three other groups—the
Humanist Party, the
Socialist Democratic Party, and the PLS. On August 26, three of four members of the PLS permanent bureau (Boșman, Cornișteanu, and Vasile Groza) went public with their opposition to this move, attributing it to Cazimir as the fourth man. They voted to expel Cazimir from the bureau permanently, and also to strip him of his party membership for a nine-months "gestation period". This resulted in the PSL losing its only parliamentary seat; it fielded candidates in 24 counties, but acknowledged that it had no hope of passing the threshold. While Iliescu managed to be reconfirmed during the election, the PLS vote share fell to 0.1%. Cazimir appeared on the FDSN list of candidates for a Bucharest precinct, and later joined the consolidated pro-Iliescu group, eventually called
Social Democratic Party (PSD). Writing in 1999, Ștefănescu suggested that Cazimir had never properly explained his own defection: "at some point he dropped his joking with the PLS and transferred toward [the PSD], a party that has led Romania into a position which is not at all joyful." The PLS–PSD continuity was highlighted by journalist
Dumitru Tinu, who attended the PSD conference of January 1997, where he reported hearing Cazimir "free-changing clowning" (
clovnerii liber-schimbiste), played out in front of a new public. A rump PLS had continued to exist for part of that interval. Cornișteanu, who succeeded Cazimir as ad-interim president, argues that he had "betrayed" the party statues, and notes that he was consequently listed as an "abandoned member". The group was ultimately disbanded in 1996 when new rules required that any party should have at least 10,000 members, or, according to Cornișteanu, when it could no longer support itself financially. Despite publishing a history of the party in 1998, when he was referred to as its "ex-president", Cazimir viewed the PLS as undissolvable. According to him, it still technically existed by 2010, because its own statutory clauses encouraged all members to join other parties. ==Electoral history==