Russians vote

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33870, 16 June 1975, Page 17

Russians vote

(N.Z.P.A.Reuter— Copyright)

MOSCOW, June 15.

Soviet citizens throughout the country will vote today to approve 'single-list candidates for Republican parliaments and local councils.

The electors —the voting age is 18 —will rubber-stamp the nomination of more than 2,200,000 deputies to the Supreme Soviets (Parliaments) of the 15 union republics, the 20 national enclaves within them, and more than 50,000 smaller local councils. Under the Soviet system, each ballot paper contains only one name. The candidates are nominated by the collectives of certain factories, societies, unions and the like, but the choice is normally made in the first place by the Communist Party. By no means all the candidates—who range from housewives and manual workers to astronauts and film stars, as well as top

politicians—are members of the party, but all are called upon to show unswerving loyalty to its doctrines. As usual, a vote of about 99 per cent is cast, at least for the Republican Parliament j candidates.

The build-up to the fouryearly elections in the Soviet media has presented them as a celebration of Socialist democracy, while scorning multi-candidate elections in capitalist countries where there is no assurance of employment and the basic necessities of life.

A cartoon in last night’s “Izvestia” lampooned “free” elections, showing ranting orators as puppets manipulated by the murky figures of "corporations,” "banks" and “militarism.”

The Communist Party leader, Mr Leonid Brezhnev, who is candidate to the Russian federation’s Supreme Soviet for the Bauman district on the east side of the city, will be voting near his flat on Kutuzovsky Prospekt, a western district.

Other top Kremlin leaders also represent Moscow constituents.