Romanian legislative election, 1948
Parliamentary elections were held in Romania on 28 March 1948.[1] They were also the first elections held under undisguised Communist rule; King Michael had been forced to abdicate in December.[2]
With all meaningful opposition having been eliminated, the People's Democratic Front, dominated by the Communist Romanian Workers Party (formed a few months earlier from the merger of the Communists and Social Democrats)[2] received 93.2% of the vote[3] and won 405 of the 414 seats in the Great National Assembly.[4]
The Communists had spent the previous two years after the heavily rigged elections of 1946 consolidating control over the country. The turning point came in the second half of 1947, when the government banned the National Peasants' Party and the National Liberal Party, the largest remaining true opposition parties (though rump Liberal and Peasant parties appeared on the ballot). The National Peasants' leaders, Iuliu Maniu and Ion Mihalache, were tried on trumped-up charges of plotting to overthrow the government in the Tămădău Affair, and were both sentenced to life imprisonment. On 30 December Prime Minister Petru Groza and Communist Party boss Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej confronted Michael and forced him to abdicate. Romania was proclaimed a "people's republic" that day. This election thus marked the culmination of the Communists' four-year drive from being a tiny party with fewer than 1,000 members to complete power.[5]
This would be the last election in Romania where opposition parties were even nominally allowed to take part until the fall of Communism. Soon after the election, all parties outside the Front were banned, though the country had effectively been a one-party state since December.
Results
| Party | Votes | % | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| People's Democratic Front[a] | 6,959,936 | 93.22 | 405 |
| National Liberal Party–Bejan | 212,438 | 2.8 | 7 |
| Democratic Peasants' Party–Lupu | 50,532 | 0.7 | 2 |
| Independent candidates | 245,635 | 3.3 | 0 |
| Invalid/blank votes | 192,490 | – | – |
| Total | 7,661,031 | 100 | 414 |
| Registered voters/turnout | 8,399,416 | 91.2 | – |
| Source: Nohlen & Stöver | |||
a Within the People's Democratic Front, the Romanian Workers Party won 190 seats, the Ploughmen's Front won 126, the National Popular Party won 43, the Hungarian People's Union won 30, the Jewish Democratic Committee won five and Romanian Workers Party-affiliates won eleven.[6]
References
- ↑ Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p1591 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Romania: Elimination of Opposition Parties Library of Congress Country Studies
- ↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p1604
- ↑ Nohlen & Stöver, p1610
- ↑ Romania: The Romanian People's Republic Library of Congress Country Studies
- ↑ Cristian Preda - "Rumânii fericiţi"
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
