Hungary Picks Boross as New Prime Minister : Europe: The former interior minister vows to continue the late premier’s free-market policies.

Parliament on Tuesday elected Peter Boross, a conservative with a reputation for toughness and efficiency, as Hungary’s next prime minister.

Boross, 65, succeeds the late Jozsef Antall.

His endorsement by a vote of 201 to 152 with five abstentions marked a practically seamless transfer of power that political leaders said was designed to ensure continuity in Hungary’s march toward free-market democracy.

The acting Speaker of Parliament proclaimed Boross prime minister after the vote, in which deputies were also asked to approve the government’s program.

Boross, who headed the caretaker government that took power when Antall died Dec. 12 after a long battle with cancer, was Antall’s interior minister and trusted lieutenant.

Political analysts put him to the political right of the moderate Antall. Both men have given strong backing to the rights of ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries.

But Boross has stressed he wants to continue Antall’s policy of building Hungary into a market democracy whose ideals are firmly anchored in European tradition.

“If I am elected, the new government will regard itself as the continuation of Antall’s legacy,” he told Parliament before the vote.

Boross reaffirmed Hungary’s strategic goals of joining the European Community and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a full member and stressed its commitment to foreign investment that has pumped nearly $6 billion into the country.

Focusing on the stagnant economy during much of his address, Boross said reducing unemployment from the current rate of just over 12% of the work force was a priority.

He also sought an end to the turmoil that accompanied the privatization of Hungarian agriculture, a central pillar of the national economy, and he said the state would provide matching grants of up to $5,000 to needy farmers.

Opposition parties that voted against Boross said his government’s program exacerbated a bad economic situation.