 | |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
All 188 electoral votes of the Extraordinary National Assembly 95 votes needed to win | |||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Elections for the princely throne of Wallachia were held on December 20–21, 1842 (New Style: January 1–2, 1843), marking the start of Gheorghe Bibescu's rule. They were the first of two such elections ever held in Wallachia, and historic in that they restored and modernized the elective monarchy, after a 112-year hiatus. While earlier elections took place under the Vlach law, the 1842–43 race was held under a modernized suffrage: there were multiple candidates, an electoral college, approval voting, and exhaustive ballot. The selection of voters extended beyond the inner circle of the Wallachian boyars, with consultation of the provincial landowners and the guilds. Such practices reflected the modernizing trend instituted by the Regulamentul Organic regime in both Danubian Principalities, under the shared custody of the Russian and Ottoman empires. In Moldavia, however, the regime did not permit princely elections, making Bibescu's the only Regulamentul reign to have been consecrated by a vote.
The 1842 election also aired disputes between various camps: the National Party versus the Russophiles, and conservatives versus liberals. These protracted battles had marked the rule of Alexandru II Ghica, deposed by collusion between Bibescu and his aging conservative rival, Alecu Filipescu-Vulpea. The electoral campaign, touched by corruption and slander, also opposed Bibescu to his brother Barbu Dimitrie Știrbei, who became a leading contender. Bibescu won when Știrbei effectively transferred him his electoral votes, leaving the senior boyar Iordache Filipescu in third-place.
Bibescu's reign was marked by concessions to the National Party, but later the prince asserted his independence, and, like Ghica before him, governed with a hostile Ordinary Assembly. He also broke with precedent by ruling without consultation and tampering with the legislative elections of 1846, but maintained a friendly rapport with the liberal camp. Eventually abdicating and leaving the country during the Wallachian Revolution of 1848, his brother Știrbei replaced him on the throne following the resumption of Ottoman control. Both brothers remained active in political life after the Crimean War, when, by renouncing their ambitions, they contributed to the union of the Principalities. This was achieved by the princely election of January 1859, when Moldavian Alexandru Ioan Cuza was granted the Wallachian throne.