Alegeri parlamentare înainte de rãzboi
General Elections before the Great War

Summary/Abstract: During the election campaign of January-February 1914, the debates concerning the imperativeness of amending the Constitution in order to apply the reforms of expropriation and creation of a single electoral college, announced by the National Liberal Party, became very intense. The important parliamentary elections organized in February 1914 were held with the purpose of electing the MPs that would have to make a decision about the amendment of the Constitution proposed by the Brãtianu government. The present study examines the way the two conservative parties’ organizations of the Dolj county related to the liberal reform proposals, as well as their participation in the elections of February 1914. The Conservative Party chose to reason away the very necessity of the two reforms, not because of the fact its members were backward defenders of the egotistic interests of the landowning class, but rather because of their natural predilection for restrained and gradual reformation. The Conservative-Democrat Party’s views lacked the unity of the conservatives’, generally ranging around Take Ionescu’s conditioned acceptance of the liberal reforms. The author shows, by reference to the election results, that the Dolj citizens of the time did not cast their vote on the issues at hand, but rather had a tendency to elect the representatives of the party in charge and the candidates with an important social capital.

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