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Christus Rex Information Service
Reversing the cruel blow of rejection by Lithuanians in 1992, Landsbergis' Homeland Union was leading the former Communists of the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDLP) with around a third of the votes counted.
With results from 722 of the 2,037 voting districts counted from Sunday's first round elections, the Homeland Union was leading with 26.42 percent.
"We can say that our party won a victory in the first round, and we do not think that, after all the votes are counted, there will be any significant changes that could affect our leading position," Landsbergis said.
"Our candidate for the post of prime minister is Gediminas Vagnorius...We hope that there will be no obstruction to this from the president," he said.
Landsbergis, a short and stocky former music professor, was at the centre of this Baltic state's head-on collision with the might of the former Soviet Union.
He won the admiration of many people for himself and ordinary Lithuanians as they took on Moscow and refused to cave in even when 13 people were killed in January 1991 in a Soviet army assault on Vilnius television, protected by ordinary people behind makeshift barricades.
But in a shock defeat in 1992, the people backed the LDLP as a party to ease the trauma of economic collapse and as Landsbergis' Sajudis was riven by in-fighting.
LDLP officials said on Monday they were ready to concede defeat and work in opposition to a right-wing government.
The results came in painfully slowly as tellers faced two separate voting lists as well as ballots in two referenda.
The LDLP was second but well behind on 9.81 percent.
A low voter turnout of 55 percent took some of the shine off the Landsbergis comeback victory as it compared with the exceptionally high 75 percent of the 1992 election.
The first round vote will decide under a proportional system 70 seats of the 141-seat parliament with a second, run-off round set for November 10 to decide the rest on a simple majority.
Landsbergis said his party would set to work with "clean hands," a reference to his constant accusations of corruption against the LDLP.
"I want to see Lithuania as different as possible from the Lithuania under Communist rule," he said.
"Ex-Communist rule was not different from Communist rule," he added.
After four years in power, many accuse the LDLP of corruption and croneyism and reneging on populist promises made when elected to ease the pain of reform.
They have made macroeconomic gains and work well with Western banks but many ordinary people see life as having changed little since the country quit the former Soviet Union six years ago.
Landsbergis' party is set to work with the Christian Democrats in parliament as the core of a coalition but it was not clear which of the other parties leading the polls wouold join up with them.
Speaking as the latest results released by election authorities gave him almost 49 percent of those votes tallied so far, Aleman launched into a victory speech at a rally at his campaign headquarters, brushing aside appeals from the leftist Sandinistas to avoid "triumphalist" messages until more votes were counted.
"From today, I invite everyone from the other political parties -- from the one in second place to the lowest placed -- to unite forces. Nicaragua needs all of us to leave the past behind," he said.
He said he expected to achieve at least 50 percent of the vote, well above the 45 percent needed to avoid a run-off against Ortega.
Authorities said that with 6.96 percent of the vote counted, Aleman of the Liberal Alliance had won 48.68 percent of the vote, against 39.58 percent for his main rival Ortega, the former revolutionary leader of the 1979-1990 Sandinista government.
Aleman had campaigned on a fiercely anti-Sandinista ticket, playing on fears that they would return Nicaragua to its violent past.
"Now is the time for the really liberating revolution, the Liberal revolution," said an exuberant Aleman supporter, Gilberto Montenegro, celebrating what he saw as the end of the Sandinista's hard-fought bid to regain the presidency.
Both sides have demonized each other during the campaign, the Sandinistas playing up Aleman's links to backers of late ex-dictator Anastasio Somoza and Aleman smearing Ortega as a closet Marxist thinly disguised as a social democrat.
The ugly campaign reignited the smouldering right-left political divide in Nicaragua, and raised fears of conflict.
At Sandinista headquarters, visibly worried officials sought to put a brave face on the early results, saying the voting sample was small enough that the final outcome could still go either way.
They also strongly appealed for calm from their own supporters and the rival camp.
"We've asked our fellow Sandinistas to remain calm, it's still very premature to say that someone won or lost. We ask the Liberal Alliance to display the same calm, to not yet indulge in triumphalist speeches," Ortega's campaign manager Alvaro Fiallos told reporters.
Aleman's supporters danced salsa and feted each other rowdily during a post-election patio party at the burly lawyer's headquarters.
"This means peace, progress and well-being for all Nicaraguans, including the Sandinistas who are also Nicaraguans," said Aleman's campaign chief Jorge Salaverry.
The revolutionary Sandinistas overthrew Somoza in 1979, fought U.S.-backed Contra rebels and governed the country for 11 years before losing power in an election to current centrist President Violeta Chamorro in 1990.
Observers the election from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the European Union said Sunday night that the vote had been legitimate despite some delays and administrative glitches.
"The mission of OAS observers has at no time found any desire to twist the will of the people of Nicaragua or any attempt at fraud," OAS Secretary General Cesar Gaviria, a former president of Colombia, told a news conference after polls closed.
Nicaragua's Supreme Electoral Council said 1,650 foreign and 4,380 Nicaraguan observers watched the vote, among them former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Kinkel, who arrived in China on Monday for a five-day visit, said he would raise human rights issues with Chinese authorities but stopped short of saying whether he would bring up the case of Wang, who faces the capital charge of plotting to overthrow the government.
"There was an appeal by Wang Dan's family," Kinkel told reporters travelling with him.
Kinkel would meet Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen later on Monday, said a spokesman for the German embassy.
"I will raise human rights issue with Chinese leaders, but it is important not to talk about human rights issues in a confrontational way," Kinkel said.
Kinkel would also meet President Jiang Zemin and Premier Li Peng.
Wang, a student leader of the 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations that were crushed by the army with heavy loss of life, was expected to be tried soon in secret, family members said. He had been previously jailed for four years for his role in the protests.
Kinkel did not explain how Wang's family had made the appeal to him, and Wang's family could not be reached for comment.
Court officials have confirmed that Wang, detained since May 1995, has been charged with plotting to overthrow the government -- a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death and a minimum of 10 years in prison. Officials declined to provide any further details of Wang's trial.
Kinkel said his long-delayed visit was aimed at putting bilateral ties back on track after a row over Tibet.
He had originally planned a visit in July, but Beijing withdrew its invitation after the German lower house of parliament passed a resolution accusing China of trying to eradicate Tibet's cultural identity.
After talks on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly meeting in New York in September, Kinkel and Qian said they had cleared up outstanding problems between China and its biggest European trade partner. Kinkel's invitation was then renewed.
Talks between Kinkel and Qian were expected to focus on likely areas of future cooperation, including environmental policy, and preparation for a state visit by President Roman Herzog scheduled for next month.
German opposition politicians have long been critical of Kinkel's policy towards China, accusing him of treading too softly on human rights issues for the sake of securing large industrial orders for German companies.
Representatives from German industry, many of them from companies specialising in environmental protection technology, are accompanying the foreign minister.
German officials have said environmental policy was expected to be one of the main themes of the visit, with Kinkel opening a joint German-Chinese workshop on environmental issues on Monday.
As one of the world's leading exporters of environmental technology after the United States, Bonn is hoping German firms can cash in on the need for environmental protection measures in China's rapidly growing economy.
Results trickling in from the Sunday poll put Landsbergis's Homeland Union party in the lead though support fell short of an outright majority.
His party's lead was overshadowed by voter apathy with the turnout of 55 percent well under the 75 percent registered four years ago.
But the stocky former music professor looked set to avenge his election defeat in 1992 by ex-Communists -- a humiliation for the man who had led the Baltic state's dramatic independence bid from the former Soviet Union the year before.
By 0930 GMT, with results in from just 339 out of 2,037 voting districts, the Homeland Union had 28 percent of the vote for party lists, chosen under a proportional representation system.
The ex-Communists of the Lithuanian Democratic Labour Party (LDLP) were running second in the poll at 10.51 percent.
Landsbergis told reporters that the results so far meant the Homeland Union had won 32 seats out of the 70 decided by the party list vote.
The remaining 71 seats in parliament are decided on a majority vote system and a second round run-off will be held for these places on November 10.
Landsbergis, avoiding any sign of triumphalism, said the Homeland Union's win was not clear cut and negotiations to build a coalition were necessary.
The Homeland Union has said it will work with the Christian Democrats, who stress traditional values in this Roman Catholic country of 3.7 million. It might also invite the Centre Union.
Landsbergis, who constantly sniped at the LDLP for corruption when he was in opposition, said he wanted to start work with a "clean pair of hands."
"We want to see a Lithuania as different as possible from the Lithuania under Communists," he told reporters.
"The Lithuania under ex-Communists was no different from the Lithuania under Communists," he added.
The LDLP were propelled back into power in 1992 on a platform of promises to ease the pain of the country's reform to a market economy.
But instead of fulfilling these pledges, the LDLP followed a path of austerity, guided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Critics accuse it of corruption and croneyism while many people say they fail to notice big changes in their lives six years after quitting the former Soviet Union.
"First of all we have to get results from the settlement of the Chechen affair," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Chernomyrdin as telling a meeting of the powerful Security Council, of which Rybkin is now secretary.
Chernomyrdin said he wanted a peaceful solution to the conflict, in which tens of thousands of people have died, but ruled out any prospect of Chechnya being allowed to secede.
The prime minister has taken over some responsibilities from President Boris Yeltsin while the Kremlin leader prepares for heart surgery.
But a leading parliamentarian who visited Yeltsin on Monday at the sanatorium where he is resting said the president was still in control and taking decisions.
Rybkin, a quietly-spoken moderate former parliamentary speaker, has already made clear he wants an end to the public rowing which marred predecessor Alexander Lebed's four-month term in office.
"Over the last few months a lot of the Security Council's work in Chechnya has been done clumsily," Rybkin said, vowing to work closely with his colleagues.
"And there can be no delay in taking decisions on the matters which have accumulated there," he added.
Lebed, sacked by Yeltsin on Thursday for making waves in the Kremlin, put together a peace deal with separatist leaders at the end of August which ended the fighting.
But critics said he had sold out Russia by agreeing to gradually withdraw Moscow's troops from the rebel territory and postpone discussions on Chechnya's future status for five years.
"Ahead of us lies some very careful work -- we can't just go charging in," Chernomyrdin said . But he added: "Russia's territorial integrity is not up for discussion."
He again stressed that the Security Council would be in charge of dealing with Chechnya in what seemed to be a bid to convince the rebels that Kremlin hardliners would not be allowed to restart the war.
Gennady Seleznyov, communist speaker of Russia's State Duma lower house of parliament who met Yeltsin on Monday, said the ailing president did not seem to have relinquished his hold on power.
"Despite his illness, he is in control of the situation and is taking decisions by himself. I think he has information on eveything going on in the country," Seleznyov told reporters after the 30-minute meeting with Yeltsin.
"It was not a 30-minute monologue by me but a dialogue. Yeltsin spoke without briefing papers and reacted in a lively way during our conversation," said Seleznyov.
Yeltsin, currently resting at the Barvikha sanatorium outside Moscow, is chairman of the Security Council, which groups top defence, security and state officials.
His blood pressure is unlikely to have been improved by news that arch-foe Alexander Rutskoi had won a local election in the central Kursk region by a landslide to seize the post of governor and stage a remarkable political comeback.
The new post gives Rutskoi a place in the Federation Council, the upper chamber of parliament.
Rutskoi, an Afghan war hero, was named vice-president in 1991 but relations between the two men quickly soured.
In October 1993 Rutskoi led a bloody uprising by the conservative parliament but was defeated and jailed. The new parliament pardoned him the following year.
Results from the largely peaceful 23-candidate presidential contest were expected early Monday after a marathon count of the yard-long ballot papers. A heavy turnout and a late start meant some polling stations stayed open after the Sunday evening official deadline to receive ballots.
"I've been here hours, I'm sick of standing in line, but if I don't do it, and the other wins, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night," said Marla Bermudez, 29.
As she stood in line at a voting booth along with about 100 others at the 6 p.m. polling deadline, Bermudez's refusal to say whom she supported underscored the tension surrounding the vote.
Polls taken before the election had right-wing lawyer Arnoldo Aleman of the Liberal Alliance narrowly leading Washington's old bogeyman, Sandinista chief Daniel Ortega -- but analysts cautioned that surveys in Nicaragua can often be unreliable.
The winner must poll 45 percent to avoid a second round run-off in late November or early December.
Confusion and technical glitches delayed the start of voting and there was one report of armed intimidation of voters in a former Contra rebel area but the day appeared to have passed off without bloodshed.
Both Aleman and Ortega shrugged off the glitches and each said he was confident of victory. But some observers worried that the problems might tarnish the credibility of the vote.
"These delays represent a very serious shortcoming that might undermine confidence in the results of the election," U.S. Rep. Ileanna Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican observing the election told a news conference.
During a bitter campaign in Nicaragua, the second-poorest country in the Americas after Haiti, the left-right struggle that has torn the nation apart for much of this century was played out again.
Aleman, 50, counts among his backers Miami exiles formerly allied to late former dictator Anastasio Somoza, who ruled Nicaragua with an iron fist for much of this century -- and whom Aleman refuses to condemn.
Just behind him was Ortega, the leader of Nicaragua's revolutionary Sandinistas who overthrew Somoza, fought U.S.- backed Contra rebels and governed the country from 1979 to 1990 before losing power in an election to current centrist President Violeta Chamorro.
Nicaraguans expected a tense night ahead of the result.
"A lot of people didn't care that much before, but now that the moment has arrived, they remember what's at stake," said Jaime Salaverry, 62, voting in a run-down Managua neighborhood.
"People my age remember the hard times in the 1970s and the 1980s and we don't want them back."
In a country where more than half the population lacks a proper job, both Aleman and Ortega have pledged economic recovery and strong leadership after the rudderless six-year rule of Chamorro -- Latin America's only female head of state.
Ortega supporters, however, dubbed Aleman the candidate of the rich, saying he did nothing for the poor when he was mayor of Managua.
Both Aleman and Ortega have sought to paint themselves as modern, business-friendly moderates with development and reconciliation at the top of their agendas.
The United States -- which earlier said it "would not use the word democrat to describe Daniel Ortega" -- has assured voters it will respect the vote whichever way it goes.
Apart from choosing the president, voters also chose a vice president, 145 mayors and 145 councillors, 90 federal deputies and 20 members of the Central American parliament.
The once-vaunted military has been in retreat since the Soviet breakup five years ago. Embarrassed by battlefield setbacks in Chechnya, the army is short of money and its poorly trained soldiers show little will to fight.
"The problem at the moment is the chaotic implosion of the armed forces," said Rose Gottemoeller, deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "They need to downsize and professionalize, but it needs to be a planned and controlled process."
Lacking both the resources and a clear foreign foe since the end of the Cold War, the military is struggling to define a new role. This absence of direction is seen as dangerous by some.
Before he was ousted Thursday as national security chief, Alexander Lebed had warned that troops could mutiny -- not in response to a political crisis, but because they haven't been paid for months.
But most analysts don't foresee any military revolt. The Russian army has a long tradition of accepting civilian authority and has tended in recent years to back democratic reform.
While there are hardliners in the officer corps who yearn for the lost empire of the Soviet era, there are also many pro-reform officers. The majority of private soldiers are conscripts whose only desire is to get out of the military, and they could not be counted on to back any coup attempt.
"If urgent measures aren't taken, the state may be left without well-trained military forces," said retired Lt. Gen. Mikhail Surkov, deputy chairman of parliament's defense committee. "It's better to have no armed forces than to have them untrained."
With President Boris Yeltsin awaiting heart surgery, his top lieutenants have traded increasingly harsh accusations, including warnings of possible political unrest or even coup attempts.
Lebed's ouster was sealed by accusations from a bitter rival, Interior Minister Anatoly Kulikov, that Lebed was plotting to form his own 50,000-man army and take power by force. No evidence has surfaced to back the charge.
There has been no sign the military is directly involved or has any intention of intervening in Kremlin quarrels, and the sacking of Lebed is likely to reduce, at least temporarily, the level of infighting.
Yeltsin promised during his re-election campaign to end unpopular conscription and create a smaller, professional military armed with modern equipment. He appointed Gen. Igor Rodionov as defense minister in July to carry out the long-delayed reforms.
With the economy in crisis, the armed forces are unable even to pay their officers and provide their troops with decent rations. The number of men under arms has declined from 2.7 million in 1992 to 1.5 million, a figure still considered too high.
Rodionov wants to swiftly trim 300,000 servicemen, while slashing the number of combat divisions from 78 to 12. These divisions would then be made truly operational, given modern weapons and staffed eventually by professional soldiers.
"Russian capability at the moment consists probably of being able to put one fully equipped division in the field and to conduct limited operations outside its borders -- provided it could operate under air superiority," said John Erikson, a specialist in the Russian military at Edinburgh University in Scotland.
Alexander Konovalov, director of a military policy center at Moscow's Institute of USA and Canada, takes an even dimmer view. Russia's military is "definitely not strong enough" for operations outside its borders, he said, adding, however, that this is no longer its mission.
There is a fear that Russian nuclear weapons, through lax security and the actions of demoralized troops, could fall into the hands of terrorists. The military acknowledges that an increasing number of soldiers are stealing conventional weapons from depots and selling them on the black market.
Spending on the military has fallen 45 percent since 1992 by Western estimates.
The army's prestige took a big hit in Chechnya, where troops were humiliated by separatist fighters. The war demonstrated the ineffectiveness of Russian forces, while eating further into the overextended budget.
Rodionov demonstrated his willingness to make changes earlier this month by dismissing six generals who opposed troop reductions, including the head of the airborne forces.
Supporters of military reform are pinning their hopes on Rodionov, who is said to have wide support in the officer corps.
"If he is thinking of reducing the military to 12 divisions, this is a man who is ready for painful, decisive, responsible steps," said Konovalov.
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