1948 Romanian legislative election

The Communists, with the help of Prime Minister Petru Groza, had spent the previous two years after the elections of 1946 consolidating their control.The turning point came in the second half of 1947, when the government initiated a campaign of harsh repression against the remaining opposition parties. The National Peasants' Party and National Liberal Party, the two largest opposition parties, were dissolved by the government.[2] The National Peasants' leaders, Iuliu Maniu and Ion Mihalache, were tried on charges of plotting to overthrow the government in the Tămădău Affair, and were both sentenced to life imprisonment.[2] On 30 December, Groza and Communist leader Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej confronted Michael and forced his abdication.[2] Michael and his personal counselor would later claim this was done with the help of a detachment of troops from the pro-Communist Tudor Vladimirescu Division.[6][7][8][9] Hours later, the Communist-dominated legislature abolished the monarchy and proclaimed Romania a "people's republic".

A month before the elections, the Communists and part of the Social Democrats merged to form the Romanian Workers' Party (PMR). However, Communists retained key posts in the new party, and used the principle of democratic centralism to ensure that the Social Democratic part of the new party complied with the new order.[2] At the same time, the National Democratic Front, an electoral alliance dominated by the PMR, was reorganized as the People's Democratic Front.[2] The Front rapidly took on a character similar to other "national fronts" in the emerging Soviet bloc. The front's minor parties became completely subservient to the PMR, and had to accept the PMR's "leading role" as a condition of their continued existence. Despite this, Groza, leader of one of those minor parties, the Ploughmen's Front, remained prime minister.

A month after the elections, the legislature adopted a new constitution. While all power was nominally derived from the will of the people through the GNA, in practice power was exercised by the PMR, which itself was closely supervised by the Kremlin.[10] Soon afterwards, all parties outside the People's Democratic Front ceased to exist, though Romania had effectively been a single-party state since the monarchy was abolished in December.