NEWS ANALYSIS : Hungarian Patriotism Carried Conservatives to Victory : Election: Pride and nostalgia won over voters. But the ruling Forum still faces a strong leftist opposition in Parliament.

The politics of national pride that carried Joszef Antall and his Hungarian Democratic Forum to victory reflect a conservative sweep across Eastern Europe as Moscow’s former satellites realign themselves toward the West.

But the center-right Forum’s success in striking an anti-leftist chord in an electorate long suppressed by socialism may prove difficult to duplicate among the strong liberal and leftist opposition it will face in Parliament.

Hungarian Radio announced Tuesday that the nation’s first democratically elected legislature will convene May 7 or 8 to swear in the next prime minister, widely expected to be Antall, and a new Cabinet to replace the Socialist caretakers who won less than 10% of the vote.

The Communist parties that had dominated Eastern Europe since the end of World War II suffered similarly in elections in Poland last year and in East Germany last month, showing a pronounced desire among the newly liberated to break with the ideology of the left. Conservative parties are also expected to do well in Romania and Czechoslovakia when free elections are held there later this spring.

Hungarians were swept by the rightist tide, but their reasons for choosing the Forum and its even more conservative allies differ somewhat from those in other states recently cut loose from the Kremlin’s tether.

The Hungarian conservatives won favor by stirring up nostalgia for the agrarian past and feelings of national pride that were stifled under communism.

They enjoyed their strongest support in rural regions, especially in the eastern part of the country, where promises of land reform and a return to “Christian democracy” appealed to voters.

Blue-collar workers also preferred the party led by Antall, a stern but fatherly figure who advocates a measured reform pace that may prevent or delay mass unemployment.

Among Hungarian intellectuals and professionals, however, the Forum raises concern about a rise of nationalism that could touch off further ethnic conflicts abroad like the mid-March clashes with Romanians in Transylvania that killed at least eight and injured hundreds.

Antall told a cheering crowd Monday that his government will champion the causes of 15 million Hungarians, referring to the ethnic minorities in neighboring countries as well as the 10.5 million who live in Hungary.

Leaders from both the Forum and the Free Democrats, who finished a distant second in the vote, have promised to bury the campaign hatchet and work together for the good of a democratic Hungary.

“All those passions and feelings of injury and hurt and insult will belong to the past, and those who have come out as winners can behave moderately from their victorious position,” Antall told reporters.

Despite the best of intentions, the parties have emerged from a hotly contested and often negative election battle with wounds and grudges that may need more than words to heal.

Free Democratic opponents charged that Forum candidates engaged in a smear campaign against them which they said took on an anti-Semitic tone at times.

Several election posters depicting Free Democratic leader Janos Kis and other Jewish candidates were defaced with swastikas, and deputy Forum leader Istvan Csurka was accused of making openly anti-Semitic remarks during campaign appearances.

Antall and other Forum leaders have denied that any anti-Jewish sentiment permeates their party.

Preliminary election results show the Forum with 165 seats and its likely coalition partners, the Independent Smallholders Party and the Christian Democrats, with 43 and 21 mandates respectively. That gives the coalition-in-the-making a comfortable majority in the 386-member Parliament.

(The release of official final results will be delayed by voting irregularities in several districts, Janos Nemeth, chairman of the National Electoral Committee, told reporters Tuesday. An announcement of final results had been expected by Tuesday. Nemeth said they would be released later, but did not say when. He said the irregularities would be investigated.)

The conservative alliance that Antall said Tuesday would take at least a couple of weeks to iron out will face a sizable, if fragmented, opposition force.

The left-leaning Alliance of Free Democrats will have 92 deputies, their allied youth group Fidesz 21 and the Socialists 33.

Antall’s party advocates a slow but sure pace of reform to bring about a market economy without inflicting too many hardships on the nation already suffering 20% annual inflation and rising unemployment.

Antall, 58, rose from virtual obscurity to head Hungary’s new political vanguard on the strength of his role in talks last year between the Socialist government and opposition groups, which ushered in the peaceful transition to democracy.

He was courted by the Small-holders and the Christian Democrats for their party leaderships, but chose to head the Forum’s election drive because he said it best combined Hungarian patriotism, economic liberalism and Christian values.

The Smallholders, whose support is vital to the Forum’s effort to control Parliament, appear eager to play a role in government. Party leaders said they expect to be given the Agriculture Ministry among its Cabinet assignments, to make good on a campaign promise of land reform.

“We can only meet these promises if we take part in the government,” Smallholders campaign manager Joszef Torgyan told reporters.

Antall said the two parties basically agreed on land policy but that details of the plan were among the issues that would take a few weeks to resolve in coalition talks.

The Smallholders have proposed restoration of private property according to 1947 land registers, but the Forum and other parties have deemed their idea unworkable.