In a Non-Government, the Silence Is Deafening : Hungary: Between the elections and the naming of new leaders, wheels have stopped and deals are on hold.

In the cavernous Interior Ministry building on Roosevelt Square, where the carpeted halls once teemed with furtive secret police and frenzied bureaucrats, a lone secretary waters drooping plants in echoing emptiness and waits to learn who will be her new boss.

Across the square, at the Forum and Hyatt hotels, Western investors and Hungarian entrepreneurs crowd the lobbies and bars, nursing along completed business deals they hope won’t fall through before an official is in place to approve them.

In these weeks between Hungary’s March 25 election and the naming of a new leadership, expected later this month, the wheels of government have come to a halt.

From the post office to the halls of justice, day-to-day decisions are delayed as the nation waits for the new democracy.

“What is going on in Hungary now is a revolution,” said lawyer Matyas Eoersi, who makes his living patching together joint ventures and investment contracts that, officially at least, still need a government go-ahead. “There will be chaotic conditions for some time to come. It shouldn’t mislead people that there is no blood in the streets.”

Under the Communist system that voters rejected decisively, everything from legal aid to the telephone system was controlled, if not monopolized, by the state. Service was slow and often shoddy, but the route and procedures for getting it were always clear.

Many of the state agencies that previously provided housing, repairs and other services have disbanded in preparation for the switch to private contracting. But the fledgling businesses springing up to replace them are hampered by inexperience and an inability to acquire the necessary assets that the government is not yet authorized to sell.

The elections seated a Parliament of 386 members whose first task is to select and endorse a new Cabinet. Negotiations on its composition have been under way since early April.

Once the ministers are in place, Parliament can turn to tackling the mountain of legislation needed to guide the lengthy transition from a centrally planned economy to free markets and integration with the West.

While the negotiations proceed, Hungary in theory is still being run by the government of Socialist (formerly Communist) Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth. The ministers face imminent ouster but will serve until their replacements are named.

Each Thursday they are driven in chauffeured black Mercedes sedans to the nearly empty Parliament building on the east bank of the Danube. Their agenda grows by the week, as the postponed items mount and resurface for discussion among the ministers who have no say in how the issues will eventually be resolved.

None of the 14 ministers in the current Cabinet, or Council of Ministers, will be retained in the new government being assembled by Joszef Antall, president of the conservative Democratic Forum.

Foreign Minister Gyula Horn’s presence at international gatherings like the “open skies” conference in Hungary in late April is purely ceremonial. Nemeth greets visiting dignitaries but is powerless to offer more than an opinion.

The Forum coasted to victory by promising a clean break with the disgraced former Communists, and most civil service employees expect the new broom to sweep out all deputy ministers and many department heads as well.

“The changes can’t be too radical, because in the meantime the government must operate,” said Csaba Kiss, spokesman for the Forum. “We want to differentiate between the Communist nomenklatura and the workers, but it is hard to know where to draw the line.”

One likely target of the housecleaning is the Interior Ministry, already stripped of responsibility for secret police work and about to lose control of national law enforcement as well.

“We don’t know what we will be in charge of other than administration,” the ministry’s perplexed spokesman, Tomas Barsi, admitted. He is not sure of his own job.

Even the structure of the new government is to be changed, since Antall plans to combine some ministries with overlapping functions, such as the separate planning and finance offices, while dividing others to eliminate conflicting responsibilities, such as hydropower generation and environmental protection.

While the Forum has vowed that the shake-up will displace only top officials compromised by their work for the past regime, the impending disruptions have sent an immobilizing shock wave through every rank.

Secretaries and drivers who were devoted aides to the now-disgraced Communists worry that their past service will be held against them. Thousands of mid-level managers are leaving for private-enterprise jobs or spending their working days on personal business, pulling strings and calling in favors before their sources of power and privilege disappear.

Those certain of staying are wary of taking on responsibility, fearful of angering a new department head by appearing aggressive or opportunistic. The result is a paralyzed bureaucracy incapable of making the smallest of decisions.

“It would be dishonest not to admit that it is a big problem for the government during this transition period,” Elemer Kiss, deputy chief of the Council of Ministers Office, said in what was clearly an understatement.

Those fearful of losing their jobs, or fed up with low wages, quit with no notice or simply failed to show up for work, cutting into government services and further undermining the already crisis-ridden economy.

In the meantime, an elaborate network of black marketing and interim fixes has been tiding over a public confronted with business that can’t wait for new laws and different enforcers.

A personnel shortage at the national land title office dictates a waiting period of months for a search to verify ownership, but a few hundred forints to the clerk can buy a stamp to satisfy lenders or renters.

No new telephone lines are available for installation, the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications contends, though top officials inquire what the asker is willing to pay under the table should the situation suddenly improve.

The freeze is frustrating, but it is expected to thaw somewhat in late spring.

Fred M. Zeder, head of the U.S. government-sponsored Overseas Private Investment Corp., brought a delegation of 41 American financiers to Budapest in late April for negotiations on joint ventures to spur Hungary’s development and escape from massive foreign debts.

“We expect this to be the most successful mission we’ve ever put on,” Zeder said enthusiastically. He said $30 million to $40 million in investment is being offered for promising projects, “but until the new government is in, we can’t get a contract signed.”