Latvian and Estonian Popular Front candidates, running on platforms advocating independence from Moscow for their Baltic republics, appeared headed for victory and control of their local parliaments, according to partial election results released Monday.
Victories by nationalists in Sunday's election would put Estonia and Latvia right behind Lithuania in the Baltic race for independence. Lithuania's parliament declared independence March 11, setting up a confrontation with Moscow.Estonia Radio projected that Popular Front candidates would win two-thirds of the 105 seats in the legislature in the Sunday balloting. Official results said 50 seats had been decided but most of the victors' names read by Estonian radio were nationalist candidates.
Of the 170 seats in the 201-member Latvian parliament already decided, the Latvian Popular Front has won 108, the official Tass news agency said.
But the Latvian results gave no clear picture of how the Communists were faring overall. It said of the 108 Popular Front victors, 34 also had some affiliation to the Communist Party. Communists with no affiliation to the nationalist Popular Front won the remaining 63 seats.
Members of the Green ecological party, Social Democrats, and Interfront, representing the Russian-speaking community of Latvia, also won seats.
The partial results showed that independence sentiment predominated even in the Baltic republic where the native, Latvian, population is barely a majority at 53.7 percent of the 2.6 million inhabitants. Ethnic Russians comprise 32.8 percent.
Tass said Latvia's voter turnout was larger than in December's balloting for local councils and credited the packed polls to "the ferocity of the struggle between rival forces and developments in neighboring Lithuania."
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev summoned the leadership of Estonia to Moscow Monday, the Estonian language newspaper, Rakhvahaal, or the Voice of the People, said Sunday.
"It is probably not difficult to guess what will be discussed," the newspaper said.
The Soviet press has not mentioned any upcoming talks with the Baltic representatives.