Dem I. Dobrescu

[2] After returning to Romania, he worked as a judge at the Iași Tribunal and then a prosecutor in Ilfov County[2] Dobrescu then joined the Bucharest bar and, after World War I, became its dean and later, the president of Lawyers' Union.

[7] Consequently, he created a series of non-partisan comitete cetățenești ("citizen committees"), which were to oversee the application of norms in areas such as health, building maintenance, street commerce, and public safety.

[8] He also soon began a series of major public works: paving most streets (with measures take to replace the many types of pavement in use with a single material);[9] radical measures in electrification and the expansion of the water supply network;[8] authorising the first buildings reflecting a modernist style;[9] widening and straightening Calea Victoriei, as well as other major routes (with the reshaping of squares such as Piața Universității);[8] sanitizing and embanking the Băneasa Lake, as well as other lakes and ponds in northern Bucharest.

[10] In a speech, he said he wanted "to profit from the widespread unemployment" to carry out large public works, "to get rid of dirt roads and to bring civilization to the outskirts and suburban areas" of Bucharest.

Dobrescu's leftist convictions eventually brought him into conflict with the PNȚ: he left in December 1935 to establish his own political movement, which took the name of the popular institution he had helped create — the Citizen Committees.