page_title: People's Party (interwar Romania)
section_title: 1919 elections
hierarchical_section_title: People's Party (interwar Romania) / History / 1919 elections
caption_attribution_description: English: Headline of Îndreptarea newspaper, claiming massive gains for the People's Party in the 1919 Romanian election, and moreover the quashing of the governing National Liberal Party. It reads: Alegerile sub dictatura militară. Infrângerea Dinastiei Brătianu, "Elections under the Military Dictatorship. The Defeat of the Brătianu Dynasty". "Military Dictatorship" refers to the widespread intrusion of military officials in political life, after World War I. "Brătianu Dynasty" is Îndreptarea's tongue-in-cheek reference to the core of National Liberal politicians, including Premier Ion I. C. Brătianu, his brothers and cousins.This was an overreaching assessment: although the National Liberals lost, Romania was ruled by a coalition government; the People's Party only came to power in 1920.
context_page_description: The People's Party, originally People's League, was an eclectic, essentially populist, mass movement in Romania. Created by World War I hero Alexandru Averescu, it identified itself with the new politics of "Greater Romania" period, and existed for almost as long as Greater Romania did. The PP broke with the antiquated two-party system, creating a wide coalition of lobbies, and advertised itself as the new challenge to the National Liberal Party. The group was held together by Averescu's charisma, and was popularly known as partidul averescan, "the Averescan party".
  In its early years, the League brought together members of the moribund Conservative Party and social reformers of diverse backgrounds, and secured for itself the votes of poor peasants and demobilized soldiers. Its platform appealed to antisemites and Jews, social liberals and fascists, loyalists and republicans. Averescu's doubts about staging a revolution, and to some degree the Averescans' rejection of political radicalism, meant that the League was pushed into a partnership with the PNL. Averescu's rise to power was confirmed in the 1920 election and then by his heavy-handed approach to labor unrest.
context_section_description: Văitoianu's favoritism of the PNL, and his fear of left-wing rebellion, sparked a conflict between government and the recently founded Socialist Party of Romania (PS). For a while, the anti-PNL Averescans and Conservative-Democrats (the "United Opposition") even negotiated with the PS leaders for a common boycott of the coming election. These negotiations opened the door to other common projects: Argetoianu and Văleanu were especially close to the PS' republican platform, while the general favored a crowned republic. Snubbed by the returning king and by Brătianu (though received with sympathy by Queen Marie), Averescu warned that a "revolution" was inevitable. He was bluffing, but the statements he issued managed to unnerve the PNL leadership.
  In fact, early 1919 marked the official end of Romania's two-party system. The unexpected confirmation of Greater Romania had pushed Marghiloman's Conservatives, vilified for their "Germanophilia" and ridiculed for their minuscule membership, into the electoral margin. Marghiloman made one final attempt to recover the losses, relaunching the Conservative group as a "Conservative-Progressive Party". According to historian Francisco Veiga, this was a "phantasmagorical party with an impossible name", confirming the Conservatives' self-defeat rather than the PNL's restoration. Powerful Conservative sections, such as the one in Neamț County, were already defecting to Averescu's League, described by sociologist Dimitrie Drăghicescu as a magnet for Conservative "wrecks and morsels".
  Averescu's group had a weak start in regular politics during the 1919 election, the first one to be carried out throughout Greater Romania, and the Romanians' first experience of universal male suffrage. Although popular, the League was undecided about whether to validate Văitoianu's handling of the vote, and only decided to boycott the election after its candidates had signed in. As a result, only some of the voters abstained, and likely winners, such as General Gheorghe Cantacuzino-Grănicerul in Vâlcea, ended up in non-eligible third places. Averescu believed that the moment to strike had not yet arrived, but, according to Marghiloman, he had missed out on a great opportunity.
  In the end, only 1.2% of the Greater Romania inhabitants opted for its Assembly of Deputies candidates, when Marghiloman could still claim 3.8% of the total Parliament votes. The League's best score was in the geographical south of the Old Kingdom, a three-county area which would endure as its electoral reservoir: Ialomița, Teleorman, Vlașca. Nevertheless, although the League had never campaigned per se in the "new regions", it received an unexpected boost in Bukovina, where it placed itself ahead of the PNL.
  The electorate was puzzled by the general's fence-sitting, and never again regained full confidence in his political abilities. The PȚ was most advantaged by the Averescan abstention, registering an unexpected growth throughout the enlarged country. Zamfirescu was assigned to oversee the League's campaign in Bessarabia, and, like Averescu himself, promised significant regional autonomy. The laurels were taken by the Bessarabian Peasants' Party, but the Bessarabian People's League, arriving to the Assembly as a minor Conservative ally, was soon absorbed into the Averescan movement.
  The resulting government was an agrarian coalition of anti-PNL parties: the Transylvanian Romanian National Party (PNR), those Democratic Nationalists who remained loyal to Nicolae Iorga, and Mihalache's PȚ. The coalition, headed by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, brought together symbols of "new" politics, punishing the PNL but also hostile toward Romanian conservatism. Although absent from Parliament, Averescu exercised his influence through the PNR's Octavian Goga, and, to his colleagues' amazement, obtained for himself the Internal Affairs portfolio. He resigned just days after, following a publicized row with Iorga.
caption: An overconfident headline of Îndreptarea, the League's main newspaper, after the election of 1919. It reads: "Elections under the Military Dictatorship. Defeat for the Brătianu Dynasty"
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