Soviet Reformers Lead Vote : Yeltsin Wins but Runoffs Are Needed

Radical reformers including Boris N. Yeltsin and several former political prisoners defeated orthodox Communist opponents in many regions, incomplete results from elections in three Soviet republics showed today.

But ballots with as many as 20 candidates in a race frustrated the election process. Returns from more than half of the 1,068 parliamentary districts in the huge Russian Federation were inconclusive, the official news agency Tass said.

The inconclusive ballots meant that voters would have to go to the polls again in those districts two weeks from now as well as in parts of the Ukraine and Byelorussia, the other two republics where elections to parliaments and local councils were held Sunday.

Complete official results are due March 14. Tass released a handful of results and others came from election observers.

The polls, involving 70% of the country’s 280 million population, took place against a background of rapid political change.

Yeltsin bested 11 other candidates to win more than 80% of the vote for a seat in the Russian Federation parliament from the city of Sverdlovsk.

The white-haired populist said the radicals’ gains will make it possible to press ahead with reforms.

“The vote gives the possibility to strengthen reforms and allow new measures to be taken,” the former Moscow party chief and junior Politburo member told reporters in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, starting a seven-nation tour promoting his autobiography.

Yeltsin would not say whether he will run for president of the Russian Federation. The post is currently held by Politburo member Vitaly I. Vorotnikov, who also won his election race in a rural district of southern Russia.

But he threatened to quit the Communist Party if the various blocs are not given proportional representation in the leadership.

The other reform candidates who won, according to unofficial results gleaned by election observers, read like a “Who’s Who” of former dissidents and popular personalities.

In the Ukraine, two former political prisoners were among leaders of a radical opposition alliance that swept into the Ukrainian parliament despite what members described as a concerted official campaign against it.

Mikhail Horyn and Vyacheslav Chornovil, who between them spent 27 years in prison but were released under Kremlin chief Mikhail S. Gorbachev, were among leaders of the nationalist Rukh movement who won parliamentary seats from the Western Ukraine.

In Donetsk, a coal-mining center and recently the scene of frequent strikes, several local Communist officials lost their races, according to Interfax, a publication of Radio Moscow. It gave no details.

In Moscow, Sergei Kovalyov, another former political prisoner and colleague of the late human rights campaigner Andrei D. Sakharov, won a seat, according to unofficial results collected by pro-reform observers.

In Leningrad, the Democratic Elections 90 pro-reform bloc said its candidates are ahead in 30 of 34 parliamentary constituencies, although many will have to go through second rounds, and stand to win 80% of seats on local councils.