Bank Official Named Premier in Romania

The president of Romania named the central bank governor as the country’s new prime minister Thursday in an effort to end the political crisis that flared this week with the ouster of the former premier.

Mugur Isarescu, 50, who served briefly as a Washington diplomat, has headed the central bank since 1990. He has until Monday to form a new Cabinet and submit an economic plan to Parliament.

Speaking live on television, President Emil Constantinescu described Isarescu as an economic specialist respected in Romania and abroad, and said Isarescu would have more credibility than previous prime ministers because he is not a member of any political party.

Constantinescu fired Prime Minister Radu Vasile early Tuesday, after seven Cabinet ministers from Vasile’s Christian and Democratic National Peasants’ Party resigned.

After the dismissal, Romania’s opposition leader, former President Ion Iliescu, declared “political war” on the leadership. Iliescu told U.S. Ambassador James Rosapepe that Constantinescu lacked the authority to fire the prime minister.

“All the laws passed by this government will be unconstitutional,” Iliescu said. His party, which holds 132 seats in the 471-seat legislature, has boycotted Parliament, which failed to convene Thursday because too few lawmakers turned up.

Isarescu, who was a diplomat at the Romanian Embassy in Washington after the collapse of communism in 1989, has won praise in international banking circles for his conservative monetary policies and for keeping the central bank relatively free of political influence.