Extreme nationalists and other opponents of President Boris Yeltsin led in early parliamentary election results Monday, riding a wave of public anger over the stinging cost of economic reforms.
With 25 of Russia's 89 districts reporting, the openly racist Liberal Democrats of Vladimir Zhirinovsky led with 23 percent of the vote. The main pro-Yeltsin group, Russia's Choice, was second with 12 percent, while two other Yeltsin foes, the Communists and the Women of Russia bloc, followed with 9 percent each.Pro-Yeltsin groups hoped to pull ahead in Moscow and other big cities, where the counting of paper ballots from Sunday's election was slow. But the reformers' chances were fading.
Zhirinovsky, predicting his party would win, called Monday for a ban on foreign aid, a crackdown on crime and a halt to converting the Russian defense industry to civilian production.
He tried to play down his extremist image, saying he would cooperate with Yeltsin. "I am not a fascist," he told reporters.
Yeltsin, whose term lasts until 1996, won approval for a new constitution enhancing presidential power, his main objective in Russia's first multiparty elections since the 1917 revolution.
The Central Election Commission said 53 percent of Russia's 105 million voters cast ballots and nearly 60 percent backed the constitution.
Voters directly elected legislators for half the parliament's 450 seats. The remaining 225 seats will be apportioned to parties based on their overall vote, with a bloc needing at least 5 percent of the vote to get seats.
It could take up to two weeks to get final results from the parliamentary election because of slow counting, officials said.
A strong showing by the nationalists and Communists could create a parliamentary opposition as confrontational and strong as the one Yeltsin faced before dissolving the old Soviet-era parliament in September.
Pro-Yeltsin groups were hurt by failing to unite in the campaign. Yeltsin's top aides and allies lead several of the 13 parties that ran for parliament. He endorsed no party.
"I believe democrats were tactically wrong from the very beginning by rejecting coordinated actions. This pushed the people away because they need reliability," said Sergei Filatov, Yeltsin's chief of staff.
A marginal political figure just three years ago, Zhirinovsky has surged in popularity among the many Russians hurt by Yeltsin's free-market reforms. He gained a huge following during the election campaign with his peppery attacks on ethnic minorities and the West.
In a possible sign of compromise, presidential spokesman Vyacheslav Kostikov said Yeltsin may be able to cooperate with the Liberal Democrats and the Communists "if they do not adhere to extreme slogans and methods."
But the pro-reform parties said they could not work with extremists.
"We are prepared to cooperate with all constructive forces, but it is not likely that we shall cooperate with fascists," said Economics Minister Yegor Gaidar, leader of Russia's Choice.
Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly Chubais, another Russia's Choice leader, said: "Nothing that Zhirinovsky has promised can be fulfilled. And if we try to fulfill it, there will be World War III."
Among the Communist Party candidates reportedly elected to parliament is Anatoly Lukyanov, the former Soviet parliament speaker who is one of the accused leaders of the 1991 hard-line coup attempt. His treason trial was suspended last month because several of the defendants are in poor health.
If the constitution had failed, Yeltsin would have been stuck in a legal vacuum, with no rules to guide the new parliament and no solution in his quest for stronger, clearer presidential powers.
The light turnout reflected Russians' weariness with politicians and disappointment that two years of free-market reforms have failed to raise living standards. Many are bitter about the collapsing economy, soaring crime, and a sense the country has lost its way as a great power.