Soviet TV warns against dramatising vote results

Press, 31 March 1989, Page 6

Soviet TV warns against dramatising vote results

NZPA-Reuter Moscow

Soviet television has cautioned against dramatising the results of Sunday’s elections for a newstyle Soviet Parliament, in which many senior Communist Party officials were defeated. The elections were the first multi-candidate voting to be held throughout the country and for the first time there were losers as well as winners. A television commentator, V. Shchepotkin, told viewers not to be upset by the fact that in many places no-one won a majority in the elections for the Congress of People’s Deputies.

“Let’s not dramatise things. There is nothing terrible about someone failing to be elected somewhere,” he said. Earlier, the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorba- ; chev, called the country’s

media bosses to a meeting to discuss the results and coverage of the vote. Tass news agency said they discussed the elections and a session of the party Central Committee earlier this month.

The brief report did not specify what Mr Gorbachev said but promised this would be published later.

It said the Kremlin’s ideology chief, Vadim Medvedev, agriculture head, Yegor Ligachev, and party personnel commission chief, Georgy Razumovsky, attended the meeting, a sign that their areas of expertise were under discussion.

Many of those rejected by the voters on Sunday were senior party officials and other officially backed candidates, including party bosses or mayors in Moscow, Kiev and Leningrad. A new vote or a run-off

will be held in places where no-one won a majority. Mr Shchepotkin said the next round would be another chance for more progress toward “democratisation of our electoral system.” Moscow newspapers have published results as have come in but there have been no Soviet reports on trends, blunting the effect of so many losses by prominent candidates.

Among those who won at the expense of officially backed candidates was the rebel, Boris Yeltsin, who campaigned for swifter reform and an end to party privileges and took 89 per cent of the poll in Moscow. His triumph was tucked away with a host of other election results published in the press the next day. Wednesday evening television report said that

in three constituencies in Armenia, less than half the electorate voted, causing new elections to be held there and elsewhere where results were inconclusive.

At 74 per cent, turnout in Armenia was the lowest in the country, which averaged between 80 and 85 per cent, according to the Soviet media. The low Armenian turnout appeared to be a protest against the refusal of authorities to place on the ballot members of the Karabakh Committee who have been campaigning to unify the disputed Azerbaijani territory of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. The Soviet television report said new elections would be held on May 14 in 199 constituencies where one or two candidates stood but failed to receive a majority of the votes.