Free-Market Economist Appointed as Romania’s New Prime Minister : Politics: He is expected to press for the same economic reforms that were advocated by his predecessor, who left amid protests by miners.

Striving to contain the damage after having sacrificed one reformist prime minister, Romanian President Ion Iliescu on Tuesday named free-market economist Teodor Stolojan to govern this turbulent nation, still deeply scarred by decades of repression.

Iliescu’s late-night announcement, after only one round of consultations with political party leaders, highlighted an atmosphere of panic that has engulfed the president since violent protests by unruly miners last week killed three and injured hundreds.

Stolojan, 48, has served as head of the National Privatization Agency since April, when he resigned as finance minister to protest a reform pace he considered too slow to be effective.

As interim prime minster, he is expected to press for the same rapid transition to a market economy advocated by his predecessor, Petre Roman, who was said to have stepped down Thursday.

But unlike Roman, who heads the powerful National Salvation Front, Stolojan has no party affiliation and therefore is considered palatable by opposition forces hoping to dilute the front’s influence before the next national election.

Iliescu effectively fired Roman last week to appease the horde of 8,000 miners who stormed Bucharest to protest price increases. Roman and his government of technocrats have been accused of eroding Romanians’ already Spartan living conditions by trying to move too fast in dismantling the complex structures of central planning imposed during more than 40 years of Communist rule.

Romania has undergone dramatic changes since its December, 1989, revolution against hard-line communism that climaxed with the Christmas execution of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

While outsiders are quick to notice shiny new shops selling designer clothing and imported delicacies, Romanians complain that the previously unheard of goods now available are still far beyond their reach because of spiraling prices and low wages.

Although Iliescu has publicly endorsed Roman’s plans for a swift, if painful, economic transition, he has sought to distance himself from the public outrage resulting from 170% inflation and growing problems with unemployment and corruption.

The president announced Thursday that he had accepted Roman’s resignation. But Roman has made clear in interviews that he was forced from office. Reform Minister Adrian Severin said he and Roman learned about their reported decision to quit when Iliescu announced it over the radio. “I think that the president realized, when he agreed to meet with the miners and negotiate with them, that he had no margin for negotiations and hoped to solve the problem in this way,” Severin said Tuesday.

Roman, 45, appears to have picked his own successor, since Stolojan was the front’s choice for interim prime minister until new elections could be held. Roman is now expected to retreat and reorganize for a political comeback, possibly even to challenge Iliescu for the presidency.

Dorin Curechian, a spokesman for the National Salvation Front, which Roman still heads, said the party expects to get a majority of votes again and that he is “quite sure” Roman will be chosen by the party leadership to head the government.

Others have indicated that Roman, if successful in returning the front to power with a strong mandate for reform, might run against Iliescu when presidential elections are held in May. Iliescu won a resounding 85% of the presidential vote in May, 1990, when Romania held its first contested elections since before World War II, and front candidates captured two-thirds of the parliamentary seats.

But recurring waves of anti-government unrest--rampages by miners and sit-ins by students--have damaged the front’s credibility and discouraged the kind of major foreign investment considered crucial to economic recovery. Despite the image problems, the front continues to outpoll any other Romanian political party in popularity.

Roman said in a weekend interview that local and parliamentary elections should be held as soon as possible to give the new leadership clear direction on the tough reform process. But even those pressing for immediate elections concede that a new vote is unlikely before six months because of the need to first adopt a constitution and a battery of election laws.

The apparent power struggle between Iliescu and Roman holds little promise of improvement or stability in the near future.

By caving in to the demands of the miners and other groups protesting rapidly rising prices, Iliescu has undermined the reforms that Roman initiated while offering no alternative for easing the social hardships they have inflicted.

What remained uncertain after the replacement of Roman with one of his top lieutenants was the former prime minister’s strategy for recovering power. As head of the front, the largest and most influential political party in Romania, he will continue to play an important role in the leadership. But as a behind-the-scenes director of the reform process, Roman risks falling into political obscurity, if Stolojan is seen as a successful alternative.

More threatening is the possibility that Stolojan may be even more susceptible to the changing winds of Romanian public opinion, causing him to weaken the reform movement and open the door to a neo-Communist resurgence.

Many political leaders, including Roman, contend that the latest violence by the miners was instigated by ousted Communists and members of Ceaucescu’s feared Securitate secret police service who have been operating underground since the revolution. Roman and Iliescu both gained power during the tumultuous days after Romania’s violent overthrow of the most repressive Communist regime in Eastern Europe.

But Roman quickly sought to match the economic and democratic reforms undertaken in other Communist countries, while Iliescu continued to cast Romania as a special case in need of a slower transition. Iliescu also clung to authoritarian practices to stay in power, such as his summoning of the miners in June, 1990, to quell anti-government unrest.