Ruling Romanian Salvation Front Revokes Hasty Plans for Referendum : East Europe: Decision means Communist Party will remain legal. Decree banning death penalty will remain in effect.

The ruling National Salvation Front on Thursday revoked its hastily announced plan for a referendum on the death penalty and on whether to ban the Communist Party.

Silviu Brucan, a member of the front’s 11-member executive council, said a decree banning the death penalty will remain in effect. The Communist Party of Romania will be allowed to exist, he said, though its life has effectively ended.

It was the second about-face on the two issues within a week, but it seemed likely that this time the council’s decision will stick.

The death penalty was banned by a decree of the front after the military executions of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, on Dec. 25. But as Brucan acknowledged Thursday, a noisy demonstration last Friday pressured Romania’s interim president, Ion Iliescu, into issuing an on-the-spot decree reinstating the death penalty for top henchmen of the Ceausescu regime.

Iliescu also announced, to shouts from the crowd, that he was banning the Communist Party by decree.

The two decrees had been urgently drafted with the assistance of Prime Minister Petre Roman and council Vice President Dumitru Mazilu, both of whom came under fire at a stormy meeting Thursday night, Brucan said.

The decrees had met with opposition in the 140-member council as soon as they were announced, and the council promptly revoked them and called for a national referendum on the two questions for Jan. 28.

Unseemly Start

Almost any street-corner poll in Romania would find widespread support for the death penalty for high-ranking members of the Ceausescu regime, particularly for leaders of the secret police. But the council’s most liberal members believe that executions would constitute an unseemly beginning for what they envision as a Western-style liberal democracy in Romania. They fear that a referendum on the question would find overwhelming approval.

The same concerns were expressed over the proposed ban on the Communist Party.

“In all the world,” Brucan said, “there is no democratic country that forbids by law the existence of the Communist Party. Romania would have been the first, the single and unique one.”

The “main associates” of the Ceausescus and the chiefs of the secret police “shall be punished very severely,” Brucan said. “We will ask that those found guilty be given the greatest punishment by law, forced labor for life.”

The council agreed with Iliescu, Brucan said, that all those who had occupied important posts in the party and the government should be gradually removed from their jobs and positions.

“Professional competence and moral character,” he said, will determine whether former party members keep their jobs.

Purging the new government of all party members has proved virtually impossible, because the new administration, as well as business and industry, would cease to function without them. The Romanian Communist Party had nearly 4 million members, and under Ceausescu, all significant jobs in the country went to party members only.

Even so, the new government has been hard-pressed to keep the country functioning. The army has been pressed into service to assist in food distribution.

Under the circumstances, Brucan said, the council members felt it would be virtually impossible to organize a nationwide referendum in two weeks’ time.

“With the national administration hardly able to stand on its feet,” he said, “and local administration still to be organized, organizing a referendum in two weeks--or even two or three months--would be difficult. Thus, we decided that the decision to hold the referendum was marked by the same haste as the first decrees.”

Brucan also announced that the property of the Romanian Communist Party and its extensive business holdings had been turned over to the state by decree of the National Salvation Front.

‘Money to Spend’

“The business of the Communist Party in Romania was business,” he said. “Their situation was not bad at all. They had money to spend.”

He said the party’s interests included 60 industrial and manufacturing enterprises with an annual turnover of 60 billion lei (roughly $4.2 billion) and profits of 2 billion lei (about $140 million). Export earnings from the companies, he said, amounted to $220 million.

The party also had extensive agricultural holdings, Brucan said, organized in 45 units and employing 18,000 workers. The annual turnover, he said, was 4.3 billion lei (about $285 million), with export earnings of $15 million. He said the agricultural units produced 40,000 tons of meat a year, 20,000 tons of milk and 40 million eggs.

Also to be turned over to the state, Brucan said, are Ceausescu family real estate holdings, which he said included 21 palaces, including “some very big ones,” 20 hunting lodges scattered across the country and 41 residential villas, one in each district of Romania, which were kept ready for Ceausescu’s personal use.

Brucan said the council had discussed the draft of a new election law that will be put before the public “for extensive national debate.”

The draft, he said, calls for “a pluralistic democratic system” with a separation of legislative, executive and judicial branches and a president limited to two terms of office. He said it calls for a two-house legislature--an assembly and a senate--to be chosen by universal vote, direct and secret. All citizens who are at least 18 years old would be allowed the vote.

“Candidates are to be proposed by parties or other political groups or organizations,” Brucan said. “During the electoral campaign, the candidates and parties have the right to express their positions openly in public meetings and rallies, and all parties and candidates and groups will be able to express their views on television, radio and the press. Access to the media will be free of charge and equally available to all those competing in the elections.”

Only fascist organizations and political parties would be banned, he said.

Brucan said that after the draft election law is completed, it will be open to negotiation with competing political parties. The National Peasants Party, the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Party have announced their intention to compete in the elections.

One issue to be resolved is the date for the elections. The front has proposed elections in April, but the Peasants Party has argued that the proposed date is too early to organize an effective campaign.

Open for Debate

Brucan said the date will be open to negotiations. Among other issues open for debate, he said, are whether to settle on a two-house or one-house legislature; whether to elect a president by direct vote or by a vote of the national assembly, and whether to provide special representation in the assembly for the military.

Brucan acknowledged the front’s inconsistent performance since it took over the administration of Romania on Dec. 22, when Ceausescu fled from office. But, in a jocular answer to a reporter’s question, he denied that the new leadership changes its mind daily.

“Every day is an exaggeration,” he said. “We change our minds only weekly. We are learning to govern democratically, and we are learning the hard way. Learning presupposes it is compulsory to make mistakes. My hope is that we will not make too many big ones.”