Pro-Independence Bloc Wins in Georgia Republic

An anti-Communist opposition bloc advocating independence for the southern Soviet republic of Georgia captured a large majority of seats in a parliamentary election, preliminary results showed Monday.

Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a longtime dissident who leads the coalition Round Table-Free Georgia, said his bloc won 70% of the 250 seats at stake in the free, multi-party elections on Sunday.

The official Soviet news agency Tass reported that the Round Table won 34 out of 125 districts and the Communist Party won 22. One deputy from the Georgian Popular Front won a seat, and runoff elections must be held for the other seats.

An additional 125 seats will be filled by the parties based on the percentages they win in the election.

“We expected the victory,” Gamsakhurdia said in a telephone interview. “The Communist Party is not popular among Georgians. It is a criminal party--a party of the mafia, not a nationalist party. The Georgian people support only the Round Table; no other parties are popular.”

The chairman of the Election Commission, Irakli Zhordania, said he could not yet give exact results. “But I can say that the Round Table won a big advantage,” he said by telephone. “The Communists were big losers compared to the Round Table.”

Another member of the Election Commission, Argil Chirakadze, said the Round Table won at least twice as many races as the Communist Party, the second-largest vote winner.

According to Gamsakhurdia’s figures, his bloc of seven pro-independence parties won at least 70% of the 250 seats on the republic’s Supreme Soviet or legislature, the Communist Party won 20% of the seats and other parties shared the rest.

But two rival nationalist parties boycotted the election, refusing to participate in any form of Soviet rule.

Many high-ranking Communists, including Georgian Prime Minister Nodar A. Chitanava, were defeated, according to Gamsakhurdia. Election commission officials refused to confirm this, pending final results.

Although nationalist movements have won majorities in elections in other Soviet republics, the Georgian election was the first time that rival groups have been registered under a new Soviet law as formal political parties.

About 35 parties, most of them grouped in blocs, participated in the election. Voter turnout was 70%, according to the Election Commission. Official results are not expected until the end of the week. Runoffs for races where no candidate won 50% of the vote are scheduled for Nov. 11.

Gamsakhurdia, a strident anti-Communist imprisoned under the late Soviet President Leonid I. Brezhnev, is a likely candidate as Georgia’s next leader.

“I feel very good,” Gamsakhurdia said. “A few years ago, I could have never imagined this could happen.”

Round Table was created in April as Gamsakhurdia’s 14-year-old group, the Helsinki Union, joined with younger organizations.

As soon as the Round Table gains control of the republic’s government, it intends to lead Georgia into a transition phase from its current status as one of the Soviet Union’s 15 constituent republics to complete political independence, Gamsakhurdia said. Establishing economic independence from the Soviet Union will be a priority, he said.

Except for a brief year of independence in the 1920s, Georgia has been part of the Soviet Union and the Russian empire for nearly two centuries. A battleground as well as crossroads, the small, mountainous republic has been fought over by Turks, Mongols, Persians, Arabs and Russians since the 6th Century.

The Round Table has not yet outlined a timetable for independence. “This will depend on Moscow,” Gamsakhurdia said, indicating his reluctance to confront the Kremlin immediately.

President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has urged the republics to remain within the Soviet Union but with greater rights to manage their own affairs.