Romanian general election, 1946

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General elections were held in Romania on 19 November 1946. The official results gave a victory to the Romanian Communist Party, its allies inside the Bloc of Democratic Parties, together with its associates, the Hungarian People's Union and the Democratic Peasants' Party–Lupu. The event marked a decisive step towards the disestablishment of the Romanian monarchy and the proclamation of a Communist regime at the end of the following year. Breaking with the traditional universal male suffrage confirmed by the 1923 Constitution, it was the first national election to feature women's suffrage, and the first to allow active public officials and army personnel the right to vote. The BPD, representing the incumbent leftist government formed around Prime Minister Petru Groza, was an electoral alliance comprising the PCR, the Social Democratic Party, the Ploughmen's Front, the National Liberal Party–Tătărescu, the National Peasants' Party–Alexandrescu and the National Popular Party. In general, commentators agree that the grouping carried the vote through widespread intimidation tactics and electoral fraud, to the detriment of both the National Peasants' Party and the National Liberal Party. While there is disagreement over the exact results, it is contended that the BPD and its allies did not receive more than 48% of the total. Instead, the elections awarded the BPD a crushing majority inside the new unicameral Parliamentit had 348 seats on its own, whereas the PNŢ was awarded 32 seats and the PNL only 3. Carried out upon the close of World War II, under Romania's occupation by Soviet troops, the elections have drawn comparisons to the similarly flawed elections held at the time in most of the emerging Eastern Bloc, being considered, in respect to its formal system of voting, among the most permissive of the latter. Following its exit from the Axis in late 1944, Romania became subject to Allied supervision. After the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Soviet authorities had increased their presence in Romania, as Western Allied governments resorted to expressing largely inconsequential criticism of new procedures in place. After the Potsdam Conference, the latter group initially refused to recognize Groza's administration, which had been imposed after Soviet pressure. Consequently, King Michael I refused to sign legislation advanced by the cabinet. On 8 November 1945, authorities repressed a gathering of Bucharesters, supported by the two main opposition parties, in front of the Royal Palacedemonstrators flocked to the plaza in front of the palace as a means to express their solidarity with the monarch. Depicting the event as a coup d'état attempt, authorities fired on the crowd, killing around 10 people. In January 1946, the 'Royal strike' itself ended with Groza agreeing to include politicians from outside his electoral alliance, appointing two members of opposition parties as Ministers without Portfolio. In mid-December 1945, the representatives of the three major Allied PowersAndrey Vyshinsky from the Soviet Union, W. Averell Harriman from the United States, and Archibald Clerk-Kerr from the United Kingdomvisited the capital Bucharest and agreed for elections to be convened in May 1946, on the basis of the Yalta Agreements. Nevertheless, and despite opposition protests, the pro-Soviet Groza cabinet took the liberty to prolong the term, passing the required new electoral procedure on June 17. Video Empire produces videos read aloud. Use the information in this video at your own risk. We cannot always guarantee accuracy. This video uses material from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_general_election, licensed with CC Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. This video is licensed with CC Attribution-Share-Alike 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ In order to adapt this content it is required to comply with the license terms. Image licensing information is available via: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_general_election