Ioan Ratiu

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Ion Rațiu (6 June 1917 – 17 January 2000) was a Romanian politician and the presidential candidate of the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (PNȚ) in the 1990 elections, where he ranked third with 4.29% of the vote. Born in Turda, Romania, Ioan Rațiu was the son of Dr. Augustin Rațiu and a great-grandson of Dr. Ioan Rațiu, leader of the Transylvanian Memorandum. His grandmother Eugenia Turcu was the daughter of Romanian activist and journalist Ion Codru-Drăgușanu. He attended school in Turda and Cluj, earning a law degree from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj in 1938. In 1940, Rațiu became Counsellor at the Romanian Legation in London under Minister Viorel V. Tilea. Following King Carol II's flight from Romania in September 1940, Rațiu resigned from the Foreign Service and requested political asylum in the United Kingdom. In 1943, he earned an economics degree from the University of Cambridge. In 1945, Rațiu married Elisabeth Pilkington, daughter of colonel Guy Pilkington; they had two children, Indrei and Nicolae. After the communists came to power in Romania in 1947, Rațiu remained in exile in London. He joined the fight against totalitarianism from the start of World War II, helping to organize the Central European Student and Youth Society. In the late 1950s, he started publishing the Free Romanian Press, a weekly news bulletin. He also contributed regularly to the BBC Romanian service, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America. In 1957, Rațiu published his critique of Western attitudes towards the Soviet Union and communism, 'Policy for the West'. In 1975, when he published Contemporary Romania, he decided to devote all his energy to the pursuit of a free Romania. He played a key role in setting up the World Union of Free Romanians (Uniunea Mondială a Românilor Liberi), which elected him president at its first congress in Geneva in 1984. Shortly after this, he started publishing The Free Romanian/Românul liber, a monthly newspaper in English and Romanian. After returning to Romania in January 1990, he helped re-create the National Peasants' Party, serving as vice-president. He ran for president in the 1990 election but was unsuccessful; however, he was elected deputy of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies for Cluj County in 1990 and 1992, and then Arad in 1996. He also served as vice-president of the Chamber of Deputies and ambassador and negotiator for Romania's integration into NATO's structures. In 1991, he re-founded the newspaper Cotidianul. After a short illness, Rațiu died in London on 17 January 2000, surrounded by his family. In accordance with his wishes, he was buried in his hometown, Turda.