People's Democratic Front (Romania)

History

The alliance was created as the National Democratic Front (Frontul Naţional Democrat) in October 1944, and was an alliance of the PCR, the Romanian Social Democratic Party (PSDR), the Ploughmen's Front (FP) and other Communist-affiliated organisations. In the fraudulent 1946 elections the front formed the core of the Bloc of Democratic Parties, which won 347 of the 414 seats in Parliament.

The Communists seized full power in December 1947 when they forced King Michael to abdicate and abolished the monarchy. In early 1948, they forced the Social Democrats to merge with them to form the Romanian Workers' Party (PMR). At a PMR congress held in February 1948, the National Democratic Front was converted into the FDP. It quickly took on a character similar to other "national fronts" in the Soviet bloc. The member parties were completely subservient to the PMR, and had to accept the PMR's "leading role" as a condition of their continued existence.

In the March 1948 elections, the Front--and through it, the PMR--consolidated its grip on the country. Like the 1946 contest, this election was blatantly rigged; the Front won an implausible 93.5 percent of the vote and all but nine seats in the legislature. Within the Front, the PMR and its allies won 201 seats (190 for the PMR and 11 for its affiliates)--just short of a majority in its own right. Those elections would be the last in which opposition parties were even nominally allowed to take part during the Communist era. Soon after the elections, all parties outside the Front were banned, though Romania had effectively been a one-party state since 1947.

In the elections of 1952, 1957, 1961 and 1965, voters only had the choice of approving or rejecting a single list of FDP candidates. Each time, the FDP claimed to win over 99 percent of the vote. In 1968 it was replaced by the Front of Socialist Unity.