Russian Victors Urge Changes in Yeltsin Plans : Politics: Cabinet and reforms to face challenges. But the president’s foes stop short of forming a legislative alliance.

MOSCOW — Communists and ultranationalists, claiming victories in Russia’s parliamentary elections, called Tuesday for abrupt changes in the Cabinet and free-market reform program of President Boris N. Yeltsin. But they stopped short of forming a legislative alliance.

With 80 of 89 regions reporting, Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky’s extremist Liberal Democratic Party commanded 24% of Sunday’s vote, a margin of nearly 2 to 1 over the runner-up Russia’s Choice bloc led by eight Yeltsin Cabinet ministers.

Together with two Communist parties, Zhirinovsky’s forces appeared to be winning 127 of the 225 seats in the Duma, or lower house, that will be apportioned among party slates on the basis of the nationwide vote. Russia’s Choice and two other pro-reform parties were getting 66 seats, and two centrist groups--Women of Russia and the Democratic Party--32 seats.

The rest of the 450-seat Duma, the more powerful of the two houses, is being filled by 225 individual candidates--one winner from each of Russia’s 225 voting districts.

As returns trickled in, a Russia’s Choice official admitted that Zhirinovsky’s lead was hard to beat.

New opposition lawmakers are already drafting legal challenges to the next crucial steps of Yeltsin’s Western-backed reform program--his decrees breaking up Soviet-era industrial monopolies and allowing the private sale of land on state collective farms.

They are also likely to press for a slowdown of the massive sale of state property and a more aggressive foreign policy toward Russia’s neighbors and the West.

U.S. Vice President Al Gore, arriving in Moscow for a three-day visit, backed away from the optimism he voiced Monday that pro-reform parties could eke out a “working majority” in Parliament. “If this (trend) holds, it’s very bad,” said a senior official traveling with him.

Gore is scheduled to meet with Yeltsin in the Kremlin today. U.S. officials said they hope to get a sense of whether the additional powers the Russian leader gained through passage of a new constitution Sunday are enough to press ahead with reforms despite legislative resistance.

Zhirinovsky and the Communists, who campaigned hard against the 2-year-old reform effort, capitalized on voters’ antipathy to inflation, organized crime and erosion of living standards.

Wearing a tuxedo and posing as a kingmaker, Zhirinovsky made it clear at his first post-election press conference that he wants a say in forming the next government.

The 47-year-old extremist referred to “my ministers” and “our government” and said he expects to be elected Russia’s next president when Yeltsin’s term ends.

Zhirinovsky, whose anti-Semitism and calls to revive the Russian empire have spread alarm here and abroad, offered to lead a “constructive opposition” if Yeltsin, as expected, shuns him.

But he announced anyway that he wants Yeltsin to fire Economics Minister Yegor T. Gaidar, the Russia’s Choice leader; Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev, regarded as a close collaborator with the West, and Deputy Prime Minister Anatoly B. Chubais, who runs Russia’s ambitious program to sell off state enterprises.

Their reforms “have greatly hurt our people,” Zhirinovsky said. “I want them out of government.”

Communist leader Gennady I. Zyuganov told a separate press conference that his party’s 11% showing in the election was a victory over Yeltsin’s boast to the U.S. Congress last year that Communist ideology was dead in Russia. He said he would ask Parliament for a vote of no confidence in Yeltsin if his market reforms continued.

“We have approached the brink of an abyss, and we cannot go ahead with the program of Russia’s Choice,” he said. “What they are suggesting is to first hit the bottom and then arise. What we are suggesting is that we should hang on, consolidate, look around and try to get out of this most difficult situation together.”

Communists and ultranationalists have joined forces against the Yeltsin government--in street demonstrations and the old Soviet-era Parliament that the president forcibly dissolved this fall. But the shape and firmness of a “red-brown” coalition in the new Duma was still uncertain.

Zhirinovsky said Tuesday that he is willing to join an alliance with anyone “to save Russia.” But he campaigned as a man who had never been a Communist and criticized the old ruling Communist elite that is well represented in Zyuganov’s resurgent party.

Zyuganov said he is “open to dialogue and cooperation” with members of Zhirinovsky’s movement.

If one thing seemed clear in the cautious, fluid search for post-election alliances Tuesday, it was that Gaidar’s urgent appeal to isolate Zhirinovsky with a broad “anti-fascist coalition” of reformers, centrists and even Communists was getting nowhere.

Grigory A. Yavlinsky, the liberal economist heading the second-strongest pro-reform party in the Duma, dumped on the idea. “We cannot form a coalition in which some will construct communism, others will construct capitalism and somebody else will look after his own problems,” he said.

Another factor weighing against the formation of rigid blocs is the proliferation of candidates, many of them wealthy, who won individual races for the Duma and answer to no party. This may make the Parliament hard for any party to control.

Candidates across Russia won seats in the Duma and the 178-seat Federation Council, or upper house, by championing local interests that have little to do with the power struggle in Moscow.

Gore said Tuesday that he still hopes Yeltsin will be able to create movable majorities of his core supporters and more conservative forces in specific legislative areas.

“They’ll learn a lot about true multi-party democracy regardless of how the breakdown turns out,” Gore said. “These legislators will be far more responsive to and interested in their local regional concerns, and that in itself will create a different character in the Parliament.”

Times staff writer John M. Broder, in Moscow, contributed to this report.

How Russian Parties Line Up

Here is a rough look ahead at how Russian parties will split up the 225 seats in the lower house of Parliament set aside for them:

HARD-LINE OPPOSITION PARTIES

* Liberal Democratic Party: 67 seats for the ultranationalist party.

* Communist Party: 31 seats for the largest Communist party.

* Agrarian Party: 29 seats for the group representing the collective farm lobby.

CENTRIST PARTIES

* Women of Russia: 20 seats. The party opposes rapid reforms.

* Democratic Party: 12 seats for the centrist opposition group.

PRO-REFORM PARTIES

* Russia’s Choice: 38 seats for the pro-Boris N. Yeltsin bloc led by Economics Minister Yegor Gaidar.

* Yavlinsky Bloc: 15 seats for the party led by economist Grigory Yavlinsky. It favors rapid change but accuses the government of ignoring hardships Russians suffer due to reforms.

* Party of Russian Unity and Accord: 13 seats for the pro-Yeltsin bloc favoring a slower pace of reforms.

From Times Staff Reports