Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 27, 1990                   TAG: 9003272033
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BUDAPEST, HUNGARY                                LENGTH: Medium

IN VOTE THEY SET UP, HUNGARY'S EX-COMMUNISTS LOSE

The Socialist Party, which ruled as the Communist Party until a name change last year, initiated the reforms that led to Sunday's balloting but got little credit from voters. It trailed in fourth place.

As election results trickled in Monday, the conservative Hungarian Democratic Forum had an edge over the center-left League of Free Democrats, but neither came close to the absolute majority needed for decisive victory. A coalition government is likely after runoff elections are held next month.

Election officials said only five of the 394 parliamentary seats had been decided by Monday, and three were Hungarian Democratic Forum wins.

More than 70 percent of Hungary's 7.85 million eligible voters cast ballots.

With 3,608,000 - 69 percent - of the votes counted late Monday, the Hungarian Democratic Forum led with 24.22 percent and the center-left League of Free Democrats was second with 20.84 percent, state radio said.

The Independent Smallholders, a revived pre-World War II party popular in rural areas, had 12.62 percent, the Socialists 10.54 percent, the radical liberal League of Young Democrats 8.57 percent and the Christian Democratic People's Party 6.43 percent.

The rest of the 29 parties that fielded candidates appeared to fall below 4 percent of the nationwide vote and so would not be entitled to any Parliament seats.

Up to 14 candidates competed in most races, and the vote was so split that many seats will have to be contested again, election officials said. In the second round of voting, a simple majority will suffice, if 25 percent of eligible voters turn out.

The Democratic Forum and the Free Democrats have said they do not want to govern together, so the Smallholders may be the key to forming a coalition.

Smallholder leader Vince Voeroes said Monday his party is ideologically closer to the Forum, which like the Smallholders is based on traditional, Christian values and in the prewar populism of rural Hungary. But he said no decision had been made on allying with the Forum.

Democratic Forum Chairman Joszef Antall said Voeroes' party would be his first choice as a coalition partner, and like the Free Democrats dismissed any idea of working with the Socialists.

"There will be no place whatsoever in the new government for members of the old government, ministers of state and deputy ministers," he said.

Premier Miklos Nemeth, a founder of the Socialist Party and one of the chief supporters of full democracy, said his government should get credit for leading the nation to the historic vote "under extremely complex conditions."

Nemeth, running as an independent in his home village of Szerencs, 70 miles northeast of Budapest, was one of the few candidates to win outright.