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

DATE: SATURDAY, June 9, 1990                   TAG: 9006090028
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: PRAGUE, CZECHOSLOVAKIA                                LENGTH: Short

CZECHS HOLD LONG-AWAITED FREE ELECTION

Voters cast ballots Friday in Czechoslovakia's first free elections following four decades of Communist rule, bringing democracy to their country only months after the overthrow of their hard-line rulers.

Voters dressed in their Sunday best turned out in moderate numbers across Prague for the two-day election to choose the 300 deputies that will sit in a new federal Parliament. Also at stake were seats for the regional Parliaments in the Czech and Slovak republics.

The new Parliament will choose a president, and it is expected to elect Vaclav Havel, the former dissident playwright elected by Parliament in December after a peaceful revolution. Parliament's chief task during its two-year term is to rewrite the constitution.

- Associated Press

by CNB