Ex-Communists Expected to Be Targets of Protest Vote in Hungary : Elections: The renamed party figures to win only 10% of the ballots. The Free Democrats are strongest.

Less than three weeks before Hungary’s first free elections for the National Assembly in four decades, only one thing is sure: There will be a resounding protest vote against the former Communists who have run the country since 1947.

The Hungarian Communists, renamed and somewhat reconstituted since last October, are prepared for the wrath of the voters on March 25.

“I think we’ll do well if we can win 30 seats in the Parliament,” said Victor Polgar, spokesman for the Hungarian Socialist Party, the former Hungarian Socialist Workers Party, as the Communists were formally known. “Everyone is gunning for us. It is going to be a protest vote against 40 years of communism, and we all know that. It’s open season for Commie-bashing.”

Public opinion polls show that Polgar’s numbers are just about right. They give the Socialists only a 10% share of the vote, with three other large parties splitting the rest of the vote fairly evenly.

The Hungarian Democratic Forum, the Alliance of Free Democrats and the Smallholders Party have emerged strong from a field of some 30 parties and draw on Hungary’s prewar traditions for support.

The Democratic Forum, with a populist and somewhat nationalistic appeal, draws most of its strength, analysts say, from the middle class across the country. Its strong nationwide base gave it an early lead in most polls, a quick organizational jump that seemed to surprise even its leaders.

The Free Democrats, however, have caught up with the Democratic Forum and are now the strongest party, according to some recent polls. The Free Democrats are run by a corps of Budapest academics and intellectuals who have proved themselves to be canny political strategists. Although they were dismissed early in the political jockeying as an urban and intellectual party, with no base in the countryside, their appeal has been growing.

The Smallholders Party has the deepest political roots in the country, extending back to the between-the-wars period, when its base was solidly formed among peasants and farmers. The party won 57% of the seats in government in the 1945 elections, and is thus able to claim a heritage that predates the Communist takeover, a powerful appeal to some voters, especially the elderly. Indeed, the appeal of the Smallholders has been one of the surprises of the campaign.

“Our party is popular because it is rooted firmly in the past,” said Vince Voros, the energetic 79-year-old leader of the party.

Voros does in some ways want to turn back the clock. His party’s main campaign issue is to force the government to return land and property confiscated by the Communists in 1947 to its owners or their heirs. Virtually all his party’s opponents say the idea is impractical and impossible to carry out. Voros and his followers say it can be done, and they plan to submit a blueprint for doing it to the new National Assembly.

Most political observers here believe that some kind of coalition will be necessary to form a new government. With the great majority of votes split among the three leading parties, this is likely to involve tense bargaining.

The three parties treat the idea of coalition gingerly, recognizing the horse trading that lies ahead. All rule out any coalition that would include the Socialists.

There is some irony in this, because some of the former Communists were instrumental in leading the way to the reforms that have brought about the peaceful revolution in Hungary. Four of them who were especially important to this process will be running on the Socialist ticket in the National Assembly elections: Imre Pozsgay, minister of state; Miklos Nemeth, the prime minister; Gyula Horn, the foreign minister, and Matyas Szuros, acting state president.

All four are virtually assured of a seat in the new National Assembly, in part because they are among the best known and most popular politicians in the country. Their fame is based largely on their reputations as party reformers, but their election coattails are expected to be extremely short. Their popularity is not going to carry over to other Socialist Party candidates, experts say.

Pozsgay, the party’s most aggressive reformer, got a boost last week in his effort to win the Hungarian presidency. His hopes had been dwindling rapidly, and the boost came when the National Assembly decided that Hungary’s new president will be chosen by direct popular vote--probably in the fall--instead of in the assembly.

At the moment, there is no one on the political horizon who can top Pozsgay in terms of name recognition.

If the new president were to be chosen by the National Assembly, it is doubtful that Pozsgay could win, since the balance of power in the new assembly will clearly be held by the new parties, none of which would support a former Communist as president.