BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- About 1.5 million Slovenians are expected to vote Sunday in Slovenia's first free election in 45 years -- a vote that could determine not only the fate of Communist Party rule but that of the Yugoslav federation itself.
In the first multi-party elections since the communists came to power after World War II in 1945, Slovenians will be able to freely choose among communist reformists and candidates of new opposition parties in electing their new president and a new three-house Parliament.
The election could be followed by a second round of voting April 22 for candidates who do not get a majority.
Milan Kucan, 49, the veteran Communist Party leader, stands a good chance of winning the post of Slovenian president for a two-year term, while non-communists are expected to win a majority in the Slovenian Parliament, according to public opinion surveys in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, 330 miles west of Belgrade.
A key issue is a nationalist proposal to secede the state of 2 million people from the Yugoslav federation of six republics and 23 million people.
The Slovenian Demos, a non-communist coalition of five opposition parties, has proposed an independent, non-socialist Slovenia state outside the Yugoslav federation.
The ruling Slovenian Communist Reformist Party and the Slovenian Liberal Party advocate an autonomous, socialist, democratic Slovenia as part of a Yugoslav federation.
Croatia will be Yugoslavia's second republic to stage multi-party elections, April 22.
About 100 opposition political parties have been formed in the past year throughout Yugoslavia, but only three states, Slovenia with 16 parties, Croatia with 32 parties and Bosnia-Herzegovina with three parties, have legally registered them. Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro states still have not passed laws governing political parties.
The Yugoslav Communist Party at its special congress in January abolished its ruling monopoly in Yugoslavia's single-party system just hours before the 2 million member organization broke apart over disagreements between liberal reformists and orthorox Communists on how to run the federation.
Slovenian Communists walked out of the congress complaining they were denied bigger autonomy and outvoted on many issues by Serbians, who as the most populous state in the country have most party members.
