BUCHAREST: “Paris,” Protestant King Henri of Navarre quipped before ascending the throne of Catholic France, “is worth a mass.” Is EU membership worth the life of Romania’s democratic parties, perhaps its infant democracy? That question will be on the lips of many of Romania’s reformers and democrats when going to the polls next week for general and presidential elections.

Baroness Emma Nicholson, the European Parliament’s special envoy to Romania, has warned that unless Romania’s next government speeds the pace of reform - particularly privatization of big state companies - hopes of joining the EU will collapse. But our ruling center/right government is massively unpopular precisely because it tried to meet EU demands. This unpopularity opened the way for a return to the presidency of Ion Iliescu, the Ceausescu-era apparatchik who ruled Romania during the first, wasted years of our postcommunist transition.

Iliescu’s first term were years that the locusts ate: reform lagged behind most Central European countries, corruption flourished, rabid nationalists barked, the government called in loyalist thugs from the mines to beat up people who protested. Four years ago, on a high tide of hope, a center/right coalition and a new “democratic” president - Emil Constantinescu - took power, surprisingly defeating Iliescu and his party.

Constantinescu’s government promised to close the gap between Romania and other postcommunist countries bidding to join the EU. It promised to clean up corruption and our banks. Believing Jacques Chirac would deliver on his pledges of support, it promised NATO membership. It promised that, by 2000, people would be better off. None of this happened and Romanians feel betrayed. They are now prepared to heed Iliescu’s siren song that the future can be found only by going back to the past. Are they right? Was Constantinescu’s presidency a total failure?

No. After years of decline, the economy is growing; after numerous financial scandals, the banking system is safer. Privatization advanced, nationalists were constrained, relations with our big Hungarian minority improved, the country stood with the West during the Kosovo war. None of this, however, made any difference in people’s daily lives - indeed, the Kosovo war and sanctions on Serbia knocked 1-2% off Romania’s GDP last year.

Economic dissatisfaction, however, does not account for all Romania’s frustrations. We also resent the Constantinescu coalition’s internal feuding and incompetence, what the Italians call “malgoverno.”

From day one, the coalition was riven by feuds. Ministers acted like adversaries rather than partners. Instead of blaming Iliescu for the shambles in which he left the country, coalition members blamed each other.

Such squabbling, it seems, is a postcommunist malady. Poland, Hungary, even Russia: in all three, infighting among reformers allowed the political heirs to the communists to reclaim power. Poland and Hungary’s postcommunists regained power after reform-minded governments freed prices, began privatization, and encouraged business. Russia’s not-so-ex-communists never assumed power again, because reformers were succeeded by Viktor Chernomyrdin’s inert government.

This sequence is important because the postcommunist revival - in Poland and Hungary at least - came as growth reappeared. Poland’s and Hungary’s postcommunists could see that reform worked and so, back in power, continued on the free-ish market road, taking credit for the economic growth nurtured by their rivals. Even Chernomyrdin’s government did not nullify Russia’s early reforms.

But Iliescu’s first government dithered on reform; growth was a dream when Constantinescu became president. Indeed, Romania’s reformers confronted conditions that the Polish, Hungarian, and Russian reform governments had faced when communism first collapsed. Although much more could have been accomplished during Contstantinescu’s presidency, hard reforms were enacted but, as in Poland and Hungary half-a-decade ago, growth arrived too late to save its architects from electoral defeat.

So Iliescu and his PDSR party are cruising toward a crushing victory. What remains unknown is whether they have learned the lesson other postcommunist parties learned - ie, to keep reform going once growth appears. Or will they turn back the clock?

Adrian Nastase, the PDSR’s executive president and its candidate for prime minister, seems to lean toward reform. One sign that he actually will institute reform will be demonstrated by whether or not the PDSR governs alone or in coalition with a centrist/liberal party or with the Hungarian minority party. For to convince the world that they would continue reforming, Poland and Hungary’s postcommunists formed coalition governments despite winning overwhelming parliamentary majorities.

Nastase knows that if he surrenders to the popular mood, raising salaries dramatically and stalling privatization, the economy will be crippled and Romania’s chances of joining the EU disappear. Whether Nastase can pursue a sensible program depends mightily on party unity, and here the PDSR is as divided as Constantinescu’s coalition. Unreformed apparatchiks surround Iliescu; they will enjoy the prestige of the presidency in any power struggle over policy.

The current campaign shows that xenophobia and nostalgia for communism retain an alarmingly potent appeal. The only hopeful aspect in Iliescu’s looming victory is that his opponents succeeded - just in time - in promoting growth and this may encourage the postcommunist to keep looking ahead. If the PDSR turns backward, the malady of our democratic reformers may prove to be fatal, both for Romania’s economy and for our hopes of ever joining Europe.