MIHALACHE, ION

born March 3, 1882, Topoloveni, Rom. died 1953?, Galati Romanian statesman and popular political leader and founder of the Peasant Party. In 1918 Mihalache formed the Peasant Party of the old Regat (Moldavia-Walachia, within the territories acquired from Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey); the party had much success in the elections of November 1919. While he was minister of agriculture in the Peasant-Transylvanian National coalition government (191920), his proposed land reforms disquieted King Ferdinand and the conservative interests and led to the so-called royal coup d'tat of March 1920, in which the rightist general Alexandru Averescu was installed as premier. In October 1926 Mihalache became vice president of the National Peasant Party, formed by the fusion of his Peasant Party with the Transylvanian Nationals. In 192830, in the first cabinet of Iuliu Maniu, he served again as minister of agriculture, and between 1930 and 1933 he served as interior minister under three governments. He refused to participate in the corporatist dictatorship of King Carol II and during World War II joined the underground liberation movement against General Ion Antonescu's military dictatorship. After the installation of a communist regime in 1945, he planned with Maniu a Romanian government-in-exile but was arrested and imprisoned in November 1947. He died in Sighet prison, probably in 1953.