however, was the one that maintained the largest number of portfolios and the most important ones. Friedrich and the other KNEP supporters (including the high nobility of the North and West and the Catholic Church) were to dominate power by controlling the cabinet, as would have happened if Horthy had kept his promise to surrender control from the armed forces to the government. The executive had little control over the bands which travelled across the country spreading the White Terror, whose victims included Jews. In December Huszár enacted a decree allowing the arrest of any person representing a "danger to public order" which led to the arrest without charge of thousands of people, including the most prominent Social-Democrats still in the country. Parliamentary elections and establishment of Horthy In the face of persecution and a lack of support in the countryside, the Social Democrats decided not to stand for election, which the progressive parties still won. The Social Democrats had remained in government only because of the country's grave situation and with the aim of moderating counterrevolutionary tendencies, but on 18 December 1919, they had been about to withdraw their ministers from the cabinet, which they eventually did the following month, on 15 January, before the political trials, electoral irregularities and the attack on the printing press of the party. The January elections gave a small majority to the Party of Smallholders, contrary to the Habsburgs and against the Christian National Union Party, monarchic and favourable to the dynasty. The result augured a future crisis between both tendencies, despite the disinterest of the majority of the population who were impoverished by the condition of the state. On 1 March 1920 and after a lobbying campaign in favour of Horthy and the intimidation of the parliament, they voted overwhelmingly for Miklós Horthy for the new post of regent of the kingdom (131 votes of 141). Troops loyal to Horthy surrounded the House during the voting. Huszár took the side of Horthy versus those who preferred the return of the king-emperor. The peace treaty The government was invited to participate in the Paris Peace Conference on 2 December. Both Horthy and Huszár were convinced of the need to sign the peace treaty, the conditions of which were presented to the Hungarian delegation on 16 January. The conference had approved the clauses almost a year before 26 February 1919, and these were based