Soviets go to polls

Press, 6 March 1984, Page 11

Soviets go to polls

NZPA-Reuter Moscow

More than 99 per cent of the Soviet Union’s 160 million voters turned out yesterday to endorse candidates approved by the Communist Party in elections to the Supreme Soviet, the country’s formal Parliament.

The elections, held every five years, were marked by a swelling campaign of public praise for Konstantin Chernenko, appointed party chief three weeks ago after the death of Yuri Andropov.

In speeches and broadcasts, public meetings and the press, Mr Chernenko, aged 72, has been hailed for his wisdom, authority, intelligence, knowledge, leadership qualities, and humanity. Western diplomats compared the mounting personal tributes with those once lavished on the late President, Leonid Brezhnev, who groomed Mr Chernenko as his chosen heir. The new leader’s style contrasts with, the more modest public profile adopted by Mr Andropov in his 15 months in office.

After devoting 20 minutes to interviews with electors praising Mr Chernenko, state television news reported that first returns had showed more than 99 per cent of voters had visited the polls. It was assumed that they almost unanimously endorsed the 1500 official candidates to the Soviet’s 1500 seats. The State devotes a lot of effort to mobilising the elec-

torate. A blanket news media campaign urging, “everyone to the polls” is accompanied by visits to every elector from local “agitators” and pep talks at places of work. Television showed voters trooping to polling stations in the big cities, arriving by reindeer-sledge to vote in the far north and casting their ballots aboard ships of the country’s big merchant fleet.

Three cosmonauts, Leonid Kizim, Vladimir Solovyov, and Oleg Atkov, orbiting the Earth since February 8, voted by radio and paid tribute to Mr Chernenko in a television appearance. The Kremlin chief, a candidate like all members of the leadership, voted at his local central Moscow polling station, accompanied by his wife, Anna. Mrs Chernenko had not previously been seen in public. According to official ideology the one-party, one-can-didate elections are far more democractic than' the multiparty system of the “bourgeois democracies” because the Communist Party alone represents the interests of the people.