Azerbaijani Nationalists Lose Ground in Republic Elections; Leader Cries Foul : Soviet Union: The Popular Front wins only about 25 of 350 contests, according to incomplete returns.

The Azerbaijani Popular Front, which appeared to dominate the political scene in the southern Soviet republic earlier this year, bringing masses into the streets, won few races in local weekend elections, leaders of the organization said Monday.

Although similar nationalist movements have swept elections in several other republics earlier this year, the Popular Front won only about 25 of 350 contests, according to unofficial and still incomplete results.

The elections, which drew 81% of registered voters to the polls, were the first since the mass unrest January in Baku, the capital, and were regarded as a major test of strength for competing political forces.

The Popular Front denounced the election as invalid, alleging there were widespread violation of election procedures, including multiple voting. Sabit Bagirov, one of the front’s leaders, said the election results should not be interpreted to mean the Azerbaijanis prefer rule by the Communist Party to rule by nationalist leaders.

“You cannot evaluate the strength of the Popular Front from the election results because there were so many violations of election rules,” Bagirov asserted. “Polls of people on the streets show that 60% support the Popular Front and only 6% support the Communist Party.”

Bagirov said that the front had anticipated its defeat because of the large troop presence in the republic under the continuing state of emergency.

“If the election was held in March or April, the Popular Front would have won,” Bagirov said. At the time, it still enjoyed great popular appeal because of the rapid democratic developments in the republic late last year.

About 20 Popular Front candidates will be in runoff elections Oct. 15, according to Bagirov, who will be one of them. Many races are expected to go into this second round since an average of three candidates were competing for each seat and winners must receive at least 50% of the vote.

Most of the election observers, numbering more than 300 from other Soviet republics, were either thrown out of polling stations by members of the election commission or prevented from coming into Azerbaijan by an order of the military commander in Baku, Bagirov said.

Sevinch Abdullaeva, a spokesperson for the official Azerbaijani information agency Azerinform, said the Popular Front’s accusations are exaggerated.

“There were violations,” she said, “but not of the kind that could invalidate the elections.”

Most of the reported violations involved people trying to vote where they were not registered in order to vote for favorite candidates, Abdullaeva said. In one voting district, the results were annulled when the election commission failed to follow procedures, she added.

Popular Front candidates also complained they were not able to campaign properly because of the state of emergency in effect since January. Troops were sent to Baku after an estimated 60 Armenians there were killed in pogroms. In the subsequent fighting between troops and Baku residents, more than 150 people, most of them Azerbaijanis, were killed.

Although troops were out of sight on election day, the stress caused by months of living in a state of emergency led the people to vote for Communist Party candidates, Bagirov said.

Bagirov said the nationalists’ political rallies were banned and they were not allowed to print their own newspaper due to the state of emergency.

Abdullaeva of Azerinform said, however, that no official protests about interference in campaigns had been filed.

“All the registered candidates were quite free to campaign,” Abdullaeva said.

Earlier this year, nationalist or democratic movements won majorities in the republican parliaments of Russia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Armenia and Moldova (formerly Moldavia) for the first time in Soviet history.

The movements are gaining strength in other areas of the country as well, challenging the authority of the central government on a range of issues, including environmental protection and economic autonomy.

In Kazakhstan, in Soviet Central Asia, regional authorities on Monday banned nuclear testing in Semipalatinsk because of what they called danger to residents’ health, the official Tass news agency reported. The top-secret range at Semipalatinsk has been the country’s major nuclear testing area for 40 years.

“Hundreds of nuclear explosions, including air blasts, have taken place in Kazakhstan, subjecting more than 500,000 to the harmful effects of radiation,” Tass said.

In Kiev, capital of the Ukraine, tens of thousands of people from across the republic demonstrated for the second day, waving blue-and-yellow national flags and calling for greater independence from Moscow. The nationalist movement Rukh had called for a republic-wide strike, but only a few enterprises took part, Rukh spokesman Pavel Bakumenko said.

A delegation from Lithuania, led by President Vytautas Landsbergis and Prime Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene, is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov in Moscow today to discuss future negotiations on the republic’s independence. Lithuania declared its independence on March 11, but froze that declaration in late June, bowing to an economic blockade imposed by the Kremlin.