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← 1984 26 March 1989 (first round)2 April–23 May 1989 (runoffs) | ||||||||||||||||
All 2,250 seats in theCongress of People's Deputies 1,126 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||
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| Turnout | 89.8% | |||||||||||||||
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Legislative elections were held in theSoviet Union on 26 March 1989 to elect members of theCongress of People's Deputies, with run-offs on 2, 9 and 20 April and 14 and 23 May.[1] They were the first partiallyfree nationwide elections held in the Soviet Union, and would be the last national elections held in that country before itsdissolution in 1991. The elections were followed byregional elections in 1990, which would be the last regional elections to take place in the country.
In January 1987Communist Party (CPSU)General SecretaryMikhail Gorbachev announced the new policy ofdemokratizatsiya (democratization). Under this concept the electorate would have a choice between multiple candidates per constituency, although CPSU would effectively remain the ruling party (in the absence of other parties). The concept was introduced by Gorbachev to enable him to circumvent the CPSU hardliners who resisted hisperestroika andglasnost reform campaigns, while still maintaining the Soviet Union as aone-partycommunist state.
In December 1988 the1977 Soviet Constitution wasamended to create a new legislative body, theCongress of People's Deputies, which replaced the oldSupreme Soviet of the Soviet Union as thehighest organ of state power. The Congress of People's Deputies consisted of 2,250deputies, who would elect a 542-member Supreme Soviet from among its members to serve as the "working" parliament.[1]
The 2,250 members of the CPD consisted of:
The 1,500 members directly elected consisted of:
The 750 members reserved for public bodies consisted of:
Candidates were required to be nominated by organisations and had to be supported at a meeting of at least 500 voters.[3] This was followed by a caucus meeting, at which candidates had to receive support from at least 50% of those present, before proceeding to the final stage, where they had to be approved by district electoral assemblies formed by worker collectives.[3][4]
A total of 7,531 candidates nominated themselves for the directly elected seats, of which 5,074 were registered to contest the elections,[1] around 90% of which were CPSU members.[3] Amongst those blocked from standing wereBoris Nemtsov, who had attempted to run in Nizhegorodsky District 158 inGorky.[4] 399 constituencies had only one candidate.[1] Around 85% of candidates were CPSU members.[1]
The 750 reserved seats were contested by 880 candidates.[1]
Of the 1,500 directly elected seats, 1,226 were won in the first round.[2] Voter turnout was 89.8% overall, with around 172,840,130 voters voting from the 192,575,165 registered.[5] Turnout ranged from 71.9% in theArmenian SSR to 98.5% in theAzerbaijan SSR.[2] Of the 274 remaining seats, 76 went to a second round on 2 and 9 April while voting in 198 had to be repeated due voter turnout being below 50%, with repeat voting on 20 April, 14 May and 23 May.[6] Around 162 million people voted in the contests for the 750 reserved seats, a turnout of 84%.[6] Repeat elections were required for five reserved seats.[6]
Although the CPSU candidates won 87% of the seats, 38 CPSU regional secretaries lost in their constitutencies.[4] Yuri Soloyov, head of the CPSU inLeningrad lost despite being the only candidate, as did leader ofKyiv City CouncilValentyn Zghursky.[7] In theLithuanian SSR thenationalist popular front won around three-quarters of the seats, while in theEstonian SSR thePopular Front won around half the seats and inLatvian SSRPopular Front of Latvia won 40 of the 56 seats.[7]
Among the dissidents elected wereBoris Yeltsin, who won over the CPSU-endorsed candidate to represent Moscow's district with 89% of the vote.[8] It was Yeltsin's first return to political power after resigning from thePolitburo in 1987. On a union republic level Yeltsin was also laterelected to the RSFSR'sCongress and then,indirectly, to itsSupreme Soviet. Anti-corruption prosecutorTelman Gdlyan, trapeze artistValentin Dikul, ethnographerGalina Starovoytova, lawyerAnatoly Sobchak, physicistAndrei Sakharov, weightlifterYury Vlasov, and hockey playerAnatoli Firsov were among the other non-endorsed candidates who were elected to the CPD.
All in all, while the majority of seats were won by endorsed candidates, one Politburo member, fiveCentral Committee members lost re-election to non-endorsed candidates. Gorbachev hailed the elections as a victory for perestroika and the election was praised in state media such asTASS andIzvestia, despite the strong opposition of hardliners within the Politburo and Central Committee.
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Votes | % | Seats | |
| Communist Party of the Soviet Union | 1,958 | |||
| Independents | 292 | |||
| Total | 2,250 | |||
| Registered voters/turnout | 192,575,165 | – | ||
The first session of the new Congress of People's Deputies opened on 25 May 1989.[1] Although hardliners retained control of the chamber, the reformers used the legislature as a platform to debate and criticize the Soviet system, with the state media broadcasting their comments live and uncensored on television. Yeltsin managed to secure a seat on the working Supreme Soviet, which was elected in the first session on 25 May and met for the first time on 3 June.[1] and in the summer formed the firstopposition, theInter-Regional Deputies Group, formed ofRussian nationalists andliberals. As it was the final legislative group in the Soviet Union, those elected in 1989 played a vital part in continuing reforms and the eventualfall of the Soviet Union two years later.
