The victory of a unionist party was held in Romania as a democratic reconfirmation of the unification, and effectively a plebiscite. It was used as evidence of the union's legality by the PȚB itself, against the claims stated by the Bolsheviks, the White émigrés, and the Ukrainian People's Republic, all of whom demanded a partition of Bessarabia. Nevertheless, the PȚB also expressed reserves toward Romanian centralism, and, for a while, its leaders contemplated forming a purely regionalistic alliance with other deputies from Bessarabia, Bukovina, Transylvania and the Banat. As summarized by Cemârtan: "The Bessarabian elites and public opinion preferred to avoid the consecrated parties, since regional extension could bring with it undesirable customs and methods."