page_title: People's Party (interwar Romania)
section_title: 1926 return to power
hierarchical_section_title: People's Party (interwar Romania) / History / 1926 return to power
caption_attribution_description: English: Cartoon published in the Romanian political newspaper Aurora, mouthpiece of the Peasants' Party, during the 1926 parliamentary election.An attack on the People's' Party cabinet and its shadow partner, the National Liberal Party: the two human-faced rats are Premier Alexandru Averescu, of the People's' Party, and Ion I. C. Brătianu, of the National Liberals. Looming over them in traditional costume is the peasant voter, his ballot stamp marked VOTAT º INELUL ("Voted for º The Ring", i. e. the Peasants' Party logo).The title reads: Pecetia alegătorului, moartea şobolanilor politici de tot felul ("The elector's seal -- death to all sorts of political rats").
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: The PP and the PNR agreed to form a "united front" against government, but Averescu made it clear that he had not lost his appetite for negotiating with Brătianu. The National Liberal tacticians eventually pushed Averescu to the forefront, allowing him to take over as Prime Minister (March 1926), but in fact maneuvering in his shadow. The Averescans were welcomed into the National Liberal high finance, with Averescu himself being appointed on the board of Creditul Minier society.
  The PP government ordered for the new elections to be carried out under a single electoral law, equally valid in the Old Kingdom and the "new regions". More controversially, the cooperation between the PNL and the PP legalized the "government dowry" in an amendment to proportional representation, ensuring the majority of parliamentary seats to any party that could absorb at least 40% of the popular vote, and obliging all registered parties to open regional sections anywhere in the country. The subsequent electoral campaign became a showdown: the PP, PNL and Peasantists each absorbed a number of smaller parties, centralizing the national vote. The PP also formalized its cartel with the Magyar Party.
  The 1926 election was an absolute peak for the PP, which received 52% of the total vote. In Râmnicu Sărat County, the Averescan candidate managed an outstanding 96.6%. However, the PP's electioneering was noted for its numerous and unsanctioned abuses, including the use of state funds for People's Party propaganda and the intimidation of opposition candidates (particularity those running for the PȚ and the Bessarabian Peasantists). As the caretaker of Internal Affairs, Goga was a prime suspect.
  Under such circumstances, the PP benefited from a fresh influx of cadres, many of whom were literati. Among those elected into Parliament as PP men was former Prahova Conservative, the award-winning writer I. A. Bassarabescu. Novelist Mihail Sadoveanu was elected in Bihor County, Transylvania, but, together with poet George Topîrceanu, represented a new generation of Moldavian PP cadres. Also active in PP politics, poet Mateiu Caragiale tried but failed to receive a party nomination.
  The Bukovinan caucus co-opted Antin Lukasevych and Iurii Lysan of the Ukrainian Social Democrats, who also won parliamentary seats, while the partnership with individual Jewish and German politicians was again revived. Ebner, Streitman, Kohlruss and Karl Klüger in Bukovina, and Yehuda Leib Tsirelson in Bessarabia, were elected on the Averescan ticket.
  Ballot rigging only strengthened the opposition in the long run. Viewing the PP and the PNL as one political machine, the other parties again coalesced into a single bloc. In October 1926, the PNR and PȚ created the most stable avatar of "new" politics, the National Peasants' Party (PNȚ). It grouped together "Green International" agrarians and classical liberals, social conservatives and socialists, driven into a revolutionary mood. After a while, the Peasantist sections were pushed into moderate positions, which allowed the PNȚ to absorb Iorga's old PND (known then as "People's Nationalist Party").
  Still, the PNȚ lost some of its more conservative Transylvanian leaders, who became PP leaders: Vasile Goldiș, Ion Lapedatu, Ioan Lupaș, Ion Agârbiceanu. Joining them were old PCD cadres who had parted with the general in 1918, including rival G. Filipescu. At the other end, the PP remained suspicious of left-wingers. Returning to its anticommunist agenda, it staged a repression against Lupta and other leftist newspapers.
  With new backing, Averescu attempted to break out of the unequal partnership with the PNL, implying that it was an "unhealthy" solution. Mihail Manoilescu, his Minister of the Economy, adopted radical fiscal policies for the redistribution of wealth, and undermined the PNL's big finance with calls for cooperative banking. At a time, a movement directed by the PP's own Teodor Neaga sought to bring back the old Bessarabian zemstvos; Averescu welcomed it with speeches about decentralization, describing zemstvos as a compromi
caption: A Peasantist cartoon of 1926, portraying Averescu and Ion I. C. Brătianu as vermin. The peasant voter is encouraged to stamp them out at the ballot box
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