Soviet Union One Man, One Vote, One Mess

By PAUL HOFHEINZ MOSCOW

On a drizzly Sunday morning, more than 1,400 people jammed into a run-down 660-seat auditorium in the Cinematographers Union building in Moscow. Elderly men with flowing beards, their chests covered with World War II decorations, pressed against the walls while young activists scurried up and down the aisles distributing pink cards to eligible voters. On the podium sat a frail man, his bald head glistening in the light. Andrei Sakharov, 67, cleared his throat and began reading. "My political program has been formed over the years," he said. "Unconditional release of all political prisoners . . ." The crowd erupted in stormy applause.

Muscovites had gathered not just to hear Sakharov speak (an event that would have been unthinkable only three years ago) but also to nominate the respected dissident as their candidate for the Congress of People's Deputies, a new 2,250-member legislative body that will convene in April. "Never, never did I think it would lead to this," marveled a young man. "Sakharov a deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Who could have imagined?"

Imagination remains in order, since last week the Soviet Union completed only the initial stage of a dizzyingly complex election campaign, the first contested balloting in the country's history. Although the period for proposing candidates ended last Tuesday, potential nominees must still pass through a maze of ill-defined voter meetings before they win a spot on the March 26 ballot.

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev hopes the more open method of selecting candidates will provide a jolt for his lagging reforms. As he explained during the Supreme Soviet that convened in November to approve the procedures, "If we do not carry out a political reform to back up the processes that are now under way in the economy, the restructuring drive will inevitably begin to falter."

For the Soviets, the new system is nothing less than revolutionary. Instead of being presented with the name of a single party-approved candidate, voters will pick from a slate of several nominees. Moreover, the elections will be conducted by secret ballot. But because of the complex, overlapping rules, the route from nomination to election is difficult to understand and often seems open to manipulation. The new law makes nominating candidates so confusing that some sessions have degenerated into brawls as factions accused one another of exploiting the fuzzy regulations to rig the outcome.

At a gathering called two weeks ago to nominate Vitali Korotich, editor of the pro-glasnost weekly Ogonyok, the candidate's backers fell into a fistfight with members of the ultra-right nationalist group Pamyat. Arriving at the rescheduled meeting last week, supporters of the Ogonyok editor found that militiamen had sealed the hall. Fearing that right-wingers were trying to exclude them from the meeting, Korotich supporters broke down a fence and stormed the building.

Elsewhere, public organizations met to select the candidates for the 750 seats that will be allotted to them in the new parliament. To the surprise of some members of the organizations, the groups elected a decidedly conservative slate of delegates. Many well-known perestroika supporters were passed over. The writers' union failed to nominate poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and the Academy of Sciences turned down physicist Roald Sagdeyev, whose calls for more perestroika have made him an increasingly popular figure.

As news spread that the social organizations were not backing the more radical proponents of perestroika, local groups formed in regular electoral districts to nominate many of those who had been passed over. After the Communist Party left former Moscow party leader Boris Yeltsin off its list of 100 candidates, 22 voters' groups around the country moved to draft him as their representative.Sakharov was nominated by an anti-Stalinist group at last week's session in the Cinematographers Union building, but only after the Academy of Sciences failed to select him.

Amid the confusion, candidates found themselves pitted against unexpected opponents. Voters who gathered in support of Sakharov learned that they may have nominated the human-rights activist to stand against maverick Communist Yeltsin. "It seems a waste," said a disgruntled voter. "Why do they have to run against each other?" Both candidates can still choose from several nominations, so a confrontation between the two is not inevitable. And whatever the shortcomings of the system, most voters seem to find the new procedures exhilarating. "At least we have some say in who will lead us," noted a 63-year-old Soviet who has participated in every election since 1947. "In the past, we didn't have any."

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: HOW THE ELECTION WORKS