USSR TO HOLD MULTI-CANDIDATE LOCAL ELECTIONS
The USSR will hold local council
elections on June 21 at which voters in some districts will
have a choice of candidates as part of an experiment in
electoral reform, the Tass News Agency said.
    The official agency said yesterday the selected districts,
still to be chosen, would have a slate of several candidates,
not all of whom could be elected, and voters would strike out
the names of those they did not support.
    Tass said candidates would have to win support from more
than 50 pct of registered constituents to win seats.
    Voting is compulsory in the Soviet Union.
    In the past, official returns for elections at most levels
in the Soviet government system have recorded 99 to 100 pct
support for all candidates. Voters simply dropped the official
ballot paper with the single candidate's name into an urn.
    Tass said districts chosen for the experiment would return
several deputies rather than a single representative to local
council bodies.
    The announcement followed pledges on electoral reform by
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, campaigning to revitalise
confidence in the communist system after what he has described
as a period of stagnation.
 REUTER
