Moldavians Turn Out for Free Election : Soviet Union: Many voters express hope that the new Parliament will bring about greater freedom from Moscow.

Moldavians voted Sunday in their first free election under Soviet rule and expressed hopes that their new Parliament would be able to win greater sovereignty from Moscow.

Many voters who gathered in parks after casting their ballots seemed excited by the prospect of a new government and the ability to choose candidates. Results are expected to be released today.

“We are learning democracy and we want to use the Parliament as a peaceful way to gain our sovereignty,” said Anatoly Zhdanov, who said he was Moldavian by nationality despite his Russian name.

Zhdanov, a 26-year-old employee in a brick factory, said he voted for the Moldavian Popular Front, an independent political movement that was the main challenger to the ruling Communist Party in the election for the 380-seat Parliament.

“Of course we are going to win and then our demands will be met,” Klavdia Zhaloba said, smiling as she sold copies of Glasul, an independent Moldavian newspaper.

With more than 200 candidates on the ballot, the Popular Front hoped to get at least 50% of the seats. “We think part of the other deputies will come around to our side,” said Yuri Roshka, a Popular Front leader and candidate.

The Moldavian Popular Front likes to compare itself to Sajudis, the Lithuanian reform group, which on Sunday claimed victory in parliamentary elections. It campaigned on a platform that favors secession from the Soviet Union.

“We want to be an independent republic--not with the Russians, and not with the Romanians. And above all we want our sovereignty,” Anatoly Goncharov said as he listened to news of election returns in Lithuania on his radio in a park.

While Lithuania enjoyed two decades of independence between the World Wars, Moldavia, a republic of 4 million people in the southwest corner of the Soviet Union, has not known independence this century.

Until the czarist empire fell apart in 1917, Moldavia was the Russian province of Bessarabia and after World War I it was ceded to Romania, with which it shares a nearly identical language and many historical and cultural heroes.

Demands for unity surged in Moldavia when Romania’s December revolution toppled Communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

But the Popular Front says reunification should be put on hold for the moment in favor of rebuilding the republic’s economy and restoring Moldavian culture.

Parliamentary elections were also held Sunday in the Central Asian republic of Tadzhikistan, recently rocked by ethnic unrest in which at least 22 people died.

Reports from the capital of Dushanbe, monitored in London, said voting was orderly. Official radio put the voter turnout at 64% and attributed the low turnout to the 6 p.m. curfew that has been in effect since Feb. 12 to prevent more unrest.

A parliamentary vote also took place Sunday in neighboring Kirghiz, a mountainous republic on the border with China. The official Tass news agency said official results in both elections were expected to be announced March 1.