Peasants' Party (Romania) - Background

Background

In the years between Romania's proclamation as a Kingdom and ca. 1919, local political life had been dominated by two major parties, the National-Liberals (or PNL) and the Conservatives. Romania's voting system during that time had was based on three electoral colleges that were meant to ensure and divide representation in proportion to personal wealth, with the third and proportionally smallest college reserved for peasant votes. This system was only once amended during its existence, under the PNL government of Ion Brătianu (1883), when the number of representatives of lower colleges was partly expanded (a move which contributed to the PNL's rise in popularity over the following decades). In ideological terms too, the peasants (who formed around 90% of the country's population) were generally not given a voice, as the two main parties mainly stood for the either landowners (the Conservatives) or the emerging urban elite (the National Liberals).

The problems posed by the rigid political structure were doubled by social issues culminating in the 1907 Peasants' Revolt. The land reform under Domnitor Alexandru Ioan Cuza had only partly answered the pressure of a growing landless peasantry, and it was soon rendered largely ineffectual by the rapid population growth in the rural sphere, as well as by the intransigence of Conservatives towards further land grants. In addition, Romania's Old Kingdom (Moldavia and Wallachia) kept its traditional restrictions of civil rights for persons of religions other than Eastern Orthodox, which progressively (after selective integrations) applied only to Jews (until 1923); since such a regime implied than many professions were not accessible to the non-Orthodox, the excluded communities directed their efforts towards several niches, including leasehold estates that drew hostility from landless peasants who were generally underpayed for work provided (a source for the partially anti-semitic message of the 1907 revolt).