THOUSANDS converged on the centre of Bucharest early yesterday as exit polls gave Mr Emil Constantinescu, of the Romanian Democratic Convention (CDR), a "clear lead in the run off presidential election against the incumbent, Mr Ion Iliescu, of the Romanian Party of Social Democracy (PDSR).
The carnival atmosphere was in marked contrast to the silence two weeks ago when the opposition CDR defeated the former communists of Mr Iliescu's PDSR in the parliamentary elections.
The celebration centred on University Square, where the first demonstrators lost their lives in the December 1989 revolution against the Ceausescu regime.
Romanians have an ambivalent attitude to their revolution. While it was the real expression of popular rage, events were cynically provoked from within the Communist Party and used as a smokescreen behind which Mr Iliescu and the Communist bureaucracy manoeuvred to maintain their power and positions.
Ceausescu was executed, but Mr Iliescu, also a communist, became president. The rejection of Mr Iliescu by the electorate finally completes the unfinished business of the revolution.
An editorial in yesterday's Evenimentul Zilei (Daily News) summed up the importance of the moment: "We'd be wrong to reduce the results of this election to the victory of Emil Constantinescu over Ion lliescu. This is primarily the victory of the Romanian people over a mechanism that seemed fatal to its proper destiny. This is the first time in Romanian history that a Romanian head of state is leaving office as a result of the will of the voters."
By yesterday evening, with 80 per cent of votes counted, Mr Constantinescu was leading with 55 per cent. Among first time voters support for Mr Constantinescu was almost total, and he won heavily in Bucharest. Mr Iliescu did best among the elderly and in rural areas.
Until only days ago, Mr Constantinescu was expected to be defeated by Mr Iliescu, as he was in the 1992 run off. A professor of geology and the author of numerous academic works, including seven books, Mr Constantinescu is an unlikely politician.
The softness of his approach tended to exasperate many of his own supporters, who considered him unequal to taking on Mr Iliescu, who was both politically astute and knows how to talk to workers and peasants. For the past months political commentators had been speculating on how Mr Iliescu would work with the CDR government. Prepared for his party's defeat in the parliamentary elections, Mr Iliescu had declared that he was ready to co operate.
Immediately after the parliamentary elections, it became apparent for the first time that Mr Constantinescu could win. The CDR formed a reform oriented government with Mr Petre Roman's Social Democratic Union (USD) and Mr Roman, who had received more than 20 per cent of the votes in the first round of the presidential elections, endorsed Mr Constantinescu for the run off.
The coalition was bolstered by an understanding with a party representing the Hungarian minority. This stable formula left only the PDSR and two minor nationalist parties out of the government equation.
Mr Iliescu panicked and played the nationalist card, accusing the CDR of cutting an unpatriotic deal with the Hungarians. Ironically, the basic treaty which Mr Iliescu recently signed with Hungary specifically precludes regional autonomy on ethnic grounds, and so limits the claims which ethnic Hungarian politicians can realistically make.
Mr Constantinescu struck a conciliatory note in his victory speech: "I want to assure the Romanian people that the time for hatred has passed, and I will not tolerate any punishment or persecution. We have not sought power in order to get revenge, but to put right something that was wrong.
It is not known if this generosity will extend to national TV, which has treated the outgoing president with great gentleness.