Gorbachev Sees Voters Holding Key to Reform : Soviet Union: The Kremlin leader goes to the polls, hopes elections will bring new faces into government.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, voting Sunday in the Soviet Union’s local and republic elections, said he sees the voting as “a people’s referendum on perestroika” and hopes they will bring new faces into the government to promote reform.

Gorbachev, speaking to reporters at the Moscow polling station where he cast his ballot, said the coming months will decide the fate of his program of political, economic and social reforms and that the election of supporters throughout the governmental structure is crucial to their success.

“These elections will be a serious turning point in the development of perestroika, “ Gorbachev said. “It is important that in the new organs of power, there are people who adhere to perestroika and who are ready to push this process forward. I believe that we are on the correct path.”

Gorbachev has consistently overcome opposition within the Communist Party’s policy-making Central Committee for his reforms, however great the break with Marxist orthodoxy. But he has encountered tough, sometimes insurmountable resistance from government and party bureaucrats at local levels.

These elections consequently are a major effort to break the hold that conservatives still retain at the bureaucracy’s working levels and to put as many Gorbachev supporters in these positions as possible.

“It is a great thing to participate in perestroika, “ Gorbachev said as he emerged from a polling station at a scientific institute in the Lenin Hills overlooking Moscow. “It elevates man. You know then what you are living for. You didn’t come into this world just to consume--there’s a reason.

“That makes these elections very important because they will bring fresh new forces, the forces of perestroika, into the political arena.”

Voters in the Russian Federation, the Ukraine and Byelorussia--three of the Soviet Union’s constituent republics, accounting for two-thirds of its 287 million people--went to the polls Sunday to choose representatives for local, regional and republic assemblies, known in Russian as “soviets.”

The elections were closely contested with an average of seven candidates for each seat, and Soviet officials reported voter turnouts of 80% and more in most districts.

“The coming months will determine how perestroika will proceed,” Gorbachev said. “It could go in a confrontational, painful way, but it could also move forward through consensus, which I favor. . . . I think it is a battle, but I am convinced that perestroika will win.”

Soviet society is “hugely impatient for change,” Gorbachev said, and the governmental councils elected Sunday will have “real rights and powers.”

“New people will be coming to the soviets--people who have been hardened and who have entered the struggle,” he added.

Urging people to “come forward and take greater responsibility for themselves,” Gorbachev said he is less worried by the number of Communist Party members among those elected than the quality of the new officials.

“It is important that the people are there who support perestroika and who are prepared to move this process forward,” he said. “Communist or non-party people, all will be good enough.”

Only a few results of the elections are expected before midweek, and some from the more remote districts of Russia’s Far North and eastern Siberia will not be known for 10 days.

Runoff elections will probably be needed in many urban districts where the large number of candidates means that no one will have received more than 50% of the votes cast, as Soviet law requires for election.

Gorbachev said he is well aware that some Communist Party officials will be defeated in the elections, in part because of popular dissatisfaction with the party’s performance, but he said he thinks this is part of the natural political process.

“We should not pit party members against non-party members,” he said. “One can talk about some party officials, even some persons of our rank, for whom the time has already passed, officials whom the people don’t want any more.

“But, as for me, I have been bound together with the party since 1952, and for me, the party is sacred.”

Gorbachev also spoke with reporters about his probable election as the Soviet Union’s first executive president under a constitutional change that will be put before the Congress of People’s Deputies, the national parliament, next Monday.

“I will not put myself forward . . . but if I am put forward I will not avoid the job,” he said. “I do not think that our people would understand if I used the current situation (to argue the need for the strong presidency) and then withdrew.”

The proposed constitutional amendment would give the Soviet president the authority to declare martial law or a state of emergency, to appoint or remove the prime minister or other senior government officials, to rule by decree in certain circumstances and even to declare war in the case of attack.

Gorbachev’s critics on both the left and the right have objected that the amendment would create the legal basis for a constitutional dictator, but he told reporters that there would be a system of checks and balances when the actual amendment is published today.

SOVIET VOTE AT A GLANCE RUSSIAN FEDERATION--More than 102 million voters chose the 1,068 members of the new supreme body of government power, the Russian Congress of People’s Deputies. The Congress will select the federation’s legislature and leadership. Voters also elected the members of the “soviets,” the local councils that govern all villages, towns and cities.

UKRAINE--Its 37 million registered voters cast ballots to fill the 450 seats in the Ukrainian Supreme Soviet legislature, as well as electing village and city soviets.

BYELORUSSIA--Its 7.2 million voters chose 310 members of the Byelorussian Supreme Soviet. Fifty seats in the body have already been filled by social organizations representing World War II veterans, retirees, invalids, the deaf and the blind. Local soviets also were elected.