The new government today promised to consult all opposition parties on the timing of elections this year but said it would make the final decision on the balloting. Trials were scheduled to begin today for members of the Nicolae Ceasescu's hated Securitate secret police in Timisoara, police said. Protests in the western city ignited a popular revolution last month that toppled the Communist dictator. Other trials for Ceausescu colleagues, including one of his sons, will begin this week on charges of aiding genocide and bringing on economic ruin, state television reported. Ceausescu and his wife, Elena, were found guilty of such charges and executed Dec. 25. Dragos Munteanu, a spokesman for the governing National Salvation Front, said no decision has yet been made to delay the scheduled April parliamentary vote, despite opposition parties' demands for more time to organize their compaigns. He said the government would consult the opposition parties and delay the elections ``if the political forces are for it.'' But he added that he favors holding the vote as soon as possible. Munteanu said the hasty decision to outlaw the Communist Party Friday night, a move that the provisional government overturned Saturday in favor of submitting the issue to national referendum, showed the need for quick elections. The questions of banning the party and capital punishment will be submitted to a national referendum Jan. 28. Calling the party ban a mistake made of inexperience, Munteanu said, ``This is one of the reasons to have the elections as soon as possible, to have a legal government, a parliament.'' Romanians still have to learn the principles of democracy, he said. ``When I speak about learning democracy, even the government has to learn it,'' he said. ``We don't have real statesmen and politicians. They have to learn it.'' In its report Sunday, state television showed Valentin Ceausescu, a son of the deposed dictator; former Communist Party Secretary Emil Bobu; former Interior Minister Tudor Postelnicu; Marin Neagoe, who directed personal security for Ceausescu; and Dimitru Popescu, former director of the Sociopolitical Academy. The five are being investigated for abetting genocide and sabotaging the economy, which was squeezed dry by Ceausescu's payoff of Romania's foreign debt of more than $10 billion between 1982 and 1989, Romanian television said. Interim Foreign Minister Sergiu Celac told reporters that Romania's economy is in ``almost complete ruin'' and that the country needs massive food imports to feed its 23 million people. The genocide allegation refers to the thousands killed during December's popular uprising _ during which Securitate units fought army troops and civilian revolutionaries _ as well as victims of political repression during Ceausescu's 24-year reign. The exact charges to be levied at the trial have not been disclosed. Valentin, Ceausescu's eldest son, was a member of the Communist Party's policy-setting Central Committee. Bobu was Ceausescu's closest associate in running Romania after the dictator's wife, Elena. Ceausescu's youngest son, Nicu, and his daughter Zoya were arrested soon after he was overthrown. But they were not shown on television over the weekend. There was no indication exactly when or where the trials would take place, but interim President Ion Iliescu told a mass rally Friday that the trials would be public and televised.
