The World - News from Dec. 27, 1988

The Soviet Union launched its first national multi-candidate election campaign with 100 Communist Party members and ordinary citizens seeking seats in the new Congress of People’s Deputies. The nominees, including a retired army general and economic reformer, have three months to win the now-unguaranteed votes of their comrades in the March 26 election. A government reform law recently dropped decades of single-candidate balloting for Communist Party nominees in favor of unlimited candidates for 2,250 seats in the new congress. The congress will help select members of Parliament. The Soviet Union first experimented with multiple candidates in some local council elections last year.