Opposition Goes Slow in Romania : Reform: National Peasants Party supports plans to abandon referendum on ending death penalty, outlawing Communist Party.

The National Peasants Party said Friday that it supports the decision of the National Salvation Front, Romania’s provisional government, to abandon plans for a referendum on the death penalty and on outlawing the Communist Party.

The Peasants Party has emerged as the leading political group in the country since the revolution that ousted the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu last month. Its support could help rally public opinion behind the front, which has flip-flopped on the two issues.

A week ago, the front’s leader, under pressure from a crowd of rowdy demonstrators, decreed an end to the Communist Party and said the death penalty would be reinstated for top officials of the Ceausescu government and the secret police. A day later, the front said the issues would be put to a nationwide referendum.

But on Thursday the front rescinded both decisions. Capital punishment, abolished after Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were executed Dec. 25, will remain abolished. The Communist Party will be allowed to exist, but most observers agree it has virtually no public support.

“We were fully informed of the decision before it was announced,” Iftene Pop, vice president of the Peasants Party, said, “and we agree with it fully. We have already expressed our opposition to the death penalty, and we do not want to see the Communists banned. We want to see them defeated in a free and fair election.”

The Peasants Party, Pop said, has received membership applications from 100,000 Romanians, many of them from a generation that can remember when the Communists overturned the 1946 election--the last free election here--after the Peasants won 76% of the vote.

Although Pop said his party supports the decisions of the front, a commission of 140 members that came together in the first days after the Ceausescu overthrow, he added that the Peasants and other parties will continue to press for a delay in the date for national elections, now set for April.

“The Peasants, the National Liberal Party and the Democratic Party have submitted a letter to the front calling for elections to be held in September,” Pop said. “We hope the front will follow this suggestion.”

Ten other groups have announced their intent to file as legal political parties, and most of them, Pop believes, will be hard pressed to organize effective political campaigns by April.

At the same time, the parties are wary that the front could become entrenched if elections are delayed too long.

“It is a difficult situation for all of us,” Pop said. “The Romanian people have gotten accustomed to the idea that power becomes degraded. We are wary of this with the front, and we must be candid about it. We worry that the front might get too used to wielding power. We support the front, because it is good for maintaining order and stability. We need the front to get food to the people and to create and to guarantee the conditions for free elections. But that is all. We do not want to see the front overstepping its mandate.”

Pop said the Peasants Party also supports a draft election law that the front announced Thursday. It calls for the creation of a two-house national legislature and separation of executive, judicial and legislative powers. All political parties, excepting those deemed fascist, will be allowed to participate, and all will have equal and free access to radio, television and press, the front said.

A public discussion on the election law will precede its adoption, according to Silviu Brucan, a member of the front’s 11-man executive committee. Brucan said all political parties will be consulted.

“We don’t need anything original in Romania,” Pop said. “A clear, plain and simple democracy is what we need.”