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The failures of interwar democracy in Eastern Europe are often ascribed to the lack of experience of the newly enfranchised population. In Romania, while the new voters indeed lacked experience, those who organized elections did not. Already before the war, the existing parties established extensive networks of party agents and civil servants in charge of local campaigns. In the 1920s and 30s the networks and the practice developed further, this time targeting the peasants in particular.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The nationalist theologian Nichifor Crainic penned a memorable description of political campaigns in the village. In 1928 he agreed to run for deputy as an independent candidate affiliated with the National-Peasant Party. The campaign, which the party insisted should take place in Crainic\u2019s home district, left him under no illusions about the workings of Romanian democracy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe electoral campaign, by the side of the unscrupulous demagogue that was the local party boss, was a cruel revelation of what democracy meant in practice. In theory a national-peasant democracy seemed to me a wise form of government. My opponent was a Liberal, D. Iuca, a man who struggled like no other to meet the needs of the district. But he had to be defeated at any cost, not for me, but for the sake of the National Peasant Party. A gangly electoral agent was describing him. The opponent was rumoured to have Albanian origins. [\u2026] \u201c\u2019Who is him?\u2019 would ask the agent. \u2018He\u2019s a foreigner, happened upon here. At night he locks himself inside, so you won\u2019t hear he\u2019s a foreigner, and sings Riki-tiki-tavi<\/em>, the Albanian anthem, all night long.\u2019 Riki-tiki-tavi<\/em> was the name of a play, seen by the agent on the posters of the National Theatre. Hearing this unintelligible enormity, the peasants, whose ranks were peppered with other agents, were screaming: \u2018Out, out! We don\u2019t need him!\u2019 Encouraged, the agent would turn to me: \u2018While our candidate- he couldn\u2019t pronounce my name well- sings only Awaken, Romanian!<\/em> from dawn to dusk\u2019 [\u2026]<\/p>\n\n\n\n The democratic idea would triumph especially as the speaker turned to my origin: \u2018I called you, brothers, to elect the blood of the peasants, since our candidate is the son of a ploughman from here, just as I am the son of a peasant from Bucharest. Hurray\u2026Long live!\u201d [\u2026] \u2018And besides, whoever is the candidate, brothers, you know the Romanian saying: \u2018Do I look at the dog, or at whom the dog belongs to?\u2019 And pointing at me with his finger, like he was owning me, he would scream: \u2018The dog belongs to the National-Peasant Party! Hurray! Long live!\u2019 Meanwhile I felt like barking and biting the agent\u2019s tongue!<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the car, from one village to another, while eating raw onion to preserve his voice, the agent explained: \u2018Brother Ionica, don\u2019t get mad that I called you the party dog, these idiots doesn\u2019t understands [sic] what\u2019s an independent candidate.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was elected with an overwhelming majority. Great triumph of democracy!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Source: Nichifor Crainic, Zile albe, Zile negre<\/em> (Bucharest: Gandirea, 1991), 210-212.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The failures of interwar democracy in Eastern Europe are often ascribed to the lack of experience of the newly enfranchised population. In Romania, while the new voters indeed lacked experience, those who organized elections did not. Already before the war, the existing parties established extensive networks of party agents and civil servants in charge of … Continue reading “An Electoral Experience in Interwar Romania”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1382,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1382"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/81"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}