assumed power, he clashed with Averescu and proclaimed himself leader of the PP, being eventually expelled. Having joined Nicolae Iorga's Democratic Nationalist Party (PND), he soon vehemently protested against the latter's alliance with the Romanian National Party, and moved to the PNL. Following the sudden death of Ion I. C. Brătianu in 1927, and choosing, in contrast to the policies of Dinu Brătianu, to support the new King Carol II in 1930, Argetoianu left the party and subsequently defined himself as an independent. In effect, he moved into the camp of politicians approving of an authoritarian regime around Carol. As the monarch's relations with the traditional political class were souring, Argetoianu allegedly engaged in a campaign to draw new allegiances from other environments, aiding to establish a Romanian camarilla — it was even reported that, using the official commitment to neutral technocracy as a means to appoint his choice of people to positions of influence, he had recruited his fellow Bucharest Jockey Club members. Among his most vocal supporters at the time was the far right philosopher Nae Ionescu. Iorga cabinet and Agrarian Party He was again in charge of Internal Affairs and Finance from 1931 to 1932, during the Iorga government, when he took a harsh stance against the fascist Iron Guard, outlawing it and arresting some of its members (which led to a string of violent confrontations). Argetoianu was hotly contested as Finance Minister: faced with the widespread insolvency of small agricultural holdings in front of the Great Depression, he proposed a form of liquidation that was considered in breach of the 1923 Constitution. Various other issues forced Argetoianu to cease payments of salaries for civil servants at certain intervals, causing far-reaching problems. The government was voted out of office in the elections of 1932, when Iorga was replaced by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod, a member of the National Peasants' Party (PNŢ) who was himself challenged with solving the agrarian issue; Argetoianu subsequently founded the minor Agrarian Union Party, which, after the National Liberals returned to power with Ion G. Duca, remained a close associate of the king in his competition with traditional forces; when Duca was assassinated by the Iron Guard in the final days of 1933, Argetoianu, together with his former adversary, PNŢ dissident Grigore Iunian, and the National Agrarian Party's Octavian Goga, was probably one of the king's main options in his attempt to create an altogether