Ion Rațiu

Ion Rațiu (; 6 June 1917 – 17 January 2000) was a Romanian lawyer, diplomat, journalist, businessman, writer, and politician. In addition, he was the official presidential candidate of the Christian Democratic National Peasants' Party (PNȚCD) in the 1990 Romanian presidential election in which he subsequently finished third, behind the neo-communist Ion Iliescu of the National Salvation Front (FSN) and Radu Câmpeanu of the National Liberal Party (PNL), with only 617,007 votes (or 4.29%).

Subsequently, on more than one occasion, he was named by major newspapers and online publications in Romania as "the best president Romania never had". During his years spent in exile, Rațiu met and discussed with important political figures of the Western world such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (former leader of the British Conservative Party), former American President Jimmy Carter (of the American Democratic Party) as well as Republican Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (also former presidential candidate on behalf of the Republican Party in the 1996 United States presidential election).

Although he wasn't the winner of the 1990 Romanian presidential election, Ion Rațiu successfully managed to remain in a significant part of the Romanian collective mindset as one of the most influential politicians of the 1990s, being admired and publicly revered by generations of subsequent Romanian politicians, some of whom had previously claimed to have even voted for him back in 1990, most notably, at least reportedly according to one of his books, the 5th and current President of Romania, Klaus Werner Iohannis. Provided by Wikipedia