Progressives End Deadlock, Elect Mayor in Leningrad

Leningrad, the cradle of Soviet power, finally received a new mayor after weeks of intense infighting among the radicals and progressives who triumphed over the Communist Party machine in local elections this spring.

Anatoly A. Sobchak, 53, dean of the law faculty at Leningrad State University and a national celebrity because of his high-profile role in the national legislature, easily won election over two other candidates, receiving 223 of 320 votes cast in the Leningrad city council, or Lensoviet.

Progressives had implored Sobchak to become a candidate in partial elections to the Lensoviet because of the deadlock caused by the splintering in April of their victorious electoral coalition, which embraced environmental activists, anti-establishment Communists and other groups.

With Sobchak’s election, the radical-progressive “Democratic Russia” group now holds the mayor’s office in the two biggest cities in the Soviet Union. One of the group’s founders, economist Gavriil Popov, was elected Moscow’s mayor last month.

In other political developments Thursday, Russia’s Congress nominated eight candidates to stand for election as the next president of the Russian federation. As expected, outspoken Communist populist Boris N. Yeltsin was among them.

“The president of the Russian federation must be a person who will open his heart and appeal to the people,” said the lawmaker who entered Yeltsin’s name in contention for the post. Yeltsin himself did not speak.