REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

Cristina ROMAN: Preparation of the Parliamentary Elections Held in 1946 311
These documentary sources described above for the period January – November 1946
are evidence which show that even long before the citizens’ votes, the P.C.R. leaders had
set up the level of 80-85-90% to their benefit and to the benefit of their masters from
Moscow. The official figures published in several days after the `elections` have
confirmed the above-mentioned percentages.
4. The Results of the 1946 Elections
Plenipotentiary Minister of the Great Britain to Bucharest Adrian Holman wrote in a
report: The government realized that all the falsification methods had failed.
Consequently, they were forced to fake the official figures and to present what it had been
a crushing defeat of the government as an overwhelming victory` 25 .
The agenda of the meeting organized by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee
of the P.C.R. on November 23, 1946 included the following topic: usage of the successful
results obtained in elections and prevention against the historic parties’ challenges.` The
stenograph of the meeting mentioned: `The acts of violence committed by the members of
the historic parties during the election campaign will be used as grounds for special files.
The press will pay a special attention to the acts of violence committed by those persons.
Administratively, measures will be taken against those who spread rumors; also any
production of lists or vote-counting process monitored by the historic parties will be
blocked 26 .
The central media body of the P.C.R. – Scânteia - published on November 23 the fake
results of the elections which showed 4,766,630 votes for B.P.D. and only 878,927 for the
National Peasants’ Party 27 . România Liberă of November 22, 1946 announced on its front
page that: „the elections were performed with no perturbations and in order. Maniu’s and
Brătianu’s supporters tried to disturb the process of elections by causing disorder and
bloody events` 28 .
In Romania, between 1919 and 1937 there were ten parliamentary elections. Five out of
them expressed the electors’ will without any touch-up: in 1919, 1920, 1928, 1933 and
probably in 1937. In the five other cases, authorities intervened to obtain that minimum
40% of the total votes, a percentage which allowed the organizing party to be given 60%
of the mandates as provided by the Election Law. Of course, the unprevailing parties
accused the officials of fraud.
However in the five cases from between the two world wars when the results were
`adjusted`, the coming into power of the liberals, of the supporters of the peasants’ party,
Averescu’s supporters or of a National Union government has meant continuity in the key
sectors of the country : economic, social and politic. Between the two world wars there
were differences of approach from one government to another, but not of overturning the
democratic basis of the country.
25 Florin Constantiniu, Ioan Chiper, op. cit., p. 201.
26 ANIC, fond CC al PCR-Cancelarie, dosar nr. 56/1946, f. 5.
27 Scânteia, 23 noiembrie 1946, p. 1.