The centenary of the Christian Democratic National Peasants’ Party

The National Peasants' Party was one of Romania's most important political parties, producing a remarkable generation of leading statesmen.

Steliu Lambru, 26.10.2026, 14:00

Foremost among them were its two leaders, Ion Mihalache and Iuliu Maniu. The National Peasants’ Party was the only political party in Romanian history to operate under a dual leadership that functioned flawlessly. Other prominent figures included Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, Armand Călinescu, Ilie Lazăr and Nicolae Carandino before 1947, while Corneliu Coposu, Ion Diaconescu and Gabriel Țepelea became emblematic representatives of the party after 1989. Over its hundred years of existence, the National Peasants’ Party governed Romania on two occasions: first over 1928-1933, during the years of the Great Depression, and then over 1996-2000.

The National Peasants’ Party was founded on October 10, 1926, with the newspaper Dreptatea (Justice) serving as its official publication. It emerged from the merger of two parties whose electoral base was rooted in the countryside: the Peasants’ Party of the Old Kingdom, led by the schoolteacher Ion Mihalache, and the Romanian National Party of historical regions Transylvania, Crișana, Maramureș and Banat, led by the lawyer Iuliu Maniu. Both parties adhered to agrarian doctrines and occupied the left wing of the political spectrum. Romanians in the Old Kingdom, as well as those in Transylvania, Crișana, Maramureș and Banat, were overwhelmingly rural in nature, and electoral support continued to grow, particularly after universal suffrage was introduced in 1918.

Historian Florin Müller, a professor at the University of Bucharest, has outlined the intellectual influences behind the Peasants’ Party led by Ion Mihalache, the “Old Kingdom” component of what would later become the National Peasants’ Party.

“The left wing of Romanian political life was occupied by the Peasants’ Party, founded in 1918. It developed a left-leaning ideology, largely under the influence of its leader, Ion Mihalache. What is particularly interesting is that, although he did not have a university education, Mihalache was a genuine intellectual, shaped above all by his reading of populist and Sămănătorist literature. He was an intellectual who was thoroughly familiar with Constantin Stere’s studies on the relationship between social democracy and populism. He knew the journal Viața Românească extremely well and was an avid reader of its political articles. He was equally familiar with Nicolae Iorga’s political writings in Sămănătorul, as well as Karl Kautsky’s studies on agrarian life and systems of land ownership”.

The “Transylvanian” component of the National Peasants’ Party was the Romanian National Party, founded in 1869 and deeply rooted in the struggle for the national rights of Romanians living within Austria-Hungary. Florin Müller explains:

“The Romanian National Party of Transylvania integrated into Romanian political life in a highly unusual and, in many respects, problematic way. Above all, Iuliu Maniu strongly opposed the National Liberal Party’s interference in Transylvania. The struggle against the Liberal regime, against what was commonly described as the oligarchic and plutocratic order, could only be pursued successfully through the unification of opposition forces. Both Iuliu Maniu and Ion Mihalache had to come forward with a political formula, a political project, capable of resisting what they referred to at the time as the Liberal oligarchy.”

The National Peasants’ Party first came to power between 1928 and 1933. In fact, there were two shorter periods in government, from 1928 to 1931 and from 1932 to 1933. The prime ministers were Iuliu Maniu, Gheorghe Mironescu, and Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, who sought to stabilize the economy amid a major global crisis.
From 1938 onwards, the National Peasants’ Party entered a difficult period, as King Carol II’s royal dictatorship banned all political parties. Ion Antonescu’s dictatorship during the Second World War maintained the ban on political parties.
After the war, when political parties were re-established, the National Peasants’ Party faced a second dark period in its history. The communist government imposed by the Soviet Union launched a large-scale campaign to discredit the old political parties, arrest their leaders, and persecute their members and supporters. One pretext used to arrest the party’s leaders was the so-called “Tămădău Affair.”

Lia Lazăr Gherasim, the daughter of Ilie Lazăr, recalled the episode as her father had described it to her after his release from prison. The Oral History Centre of the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company recorded an interview with her in 1994.
Lia Lazar Gherasim: “What my father told us when he returned from prison. They were told that there would be a plane with several seats. We said goodbye on the evening of 13 July, when a man who was driving came to pick him up. My father later told me that the man had been one of his interrogators, which meant he was working for the Securitate, the communist secret police. It is clear that the whole thing was a trap set by the Securitate. We parted with great emotion, praying to God that we would see each other again and that everything would be all right. The following day, the Securitate knocked on the door of our home. They came in to search the house. My mother and I were calm, convinced that my father and the others had already left. We did not know that secret police officers had rushed out of the cornfields and the woods. There were two planes, and they were not meant to accommodate fourteen people. Everyone was arrested and taken away.”

This was followed by 42 years of prohibition, persecution, and clandestine activity. Iuliu Maniu and Ion Mihalache, the party’s leaders, died in prison, while other prominent figures and activists were imprisoned.
In 1987, CorneliuCoposu, who would become the party’s leader after 1989, re-established it underground and transformed it into a Christian Democratic party. In December 1989, just days after the fall of NicolaeCeaușescu’s communist regime, a group of former members legally re-established the party.

Between 1996 and 2000, a coalition led by the National Peasants’ Christian Democratic Party took power during a period of severe economic hardship for Romania. The consequences of that government’s tenure led to a decline in the party’s popularity. Today, it has become an insignificant force in Romanian politics.