Sakharov Wins Seat in Soviets’ New Parliament

Andrei D. Sakharov, the outspoken nuclear physicist who spent six years in internal exile for challenging Soviet authorities on issues ranging from nuclear weapons to human rights, won a seat Thursday in the new Soviet Parliament, Tass said.

In a brief dispatch, the news agency said the Nobel laureate won in a second round of voting after overcoming bureaucratic opposition within the Academy of Sciences, which was allotted 20 seats in the 2,250-member Parliament. Tass did not give the vote totals.

The victory for Sakharov, 67, frail after years of KGB harassment and exile from 1980 to 1986, capped his rehabilitation from outcast to member of the Congress of People’s Deputies, the first legislative body created partially through democratic elections since 1917.

The initial round of balloting March 26 touched off an unprecedented wave of public debate and ended with resounding defeat for many Communist Party regulars.

When Sakharov’s name was initially put forward as a possible candidate for the congress, he received the backing of scientific institutions around the country. But his candidacy was rejected by old-guard members of the Academy of Sciences.