On 14 July 1947, several notable members of the opposition National Peasant's Party, including its vice-president and co-founder, Ion Mihalache, were apprehended while trying to flee Romania. Iuliu Maniu, the party's other co-founder and one of its most prominent politicians, would also be taken into custody in relation to the incident.
The "Tămădău Affair" - as the arrests were later to be known - served as a pretext for a number of show trials against the NPP's leaders and for bringing down the opposition. As a result, Maniu, Mihalache and many others would die in prison.