Opposition to Gorbachev Reported

MOSCOW--President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and other members of the ruling Politburo failed to win unanimous support as Communist Party deputies in a new Soviet legislature, Pravda reported Sunday.

Providing unusual insight into divisions in the policy-making Central Committee, the Communist Party newspaper said of 641 Central Committee members and alternates who voted Thursday, 12 were opposed to Gorbachev.

Yegor K. Ligachev, reputedly a conservative force on the Politburo, got the most "no" votes of any Politburo member, 78, according to Pravda.

The Communist Party and some other public organizations are entitled to directly choose 750 of the 2250 members of the new Congress of People's Deputies. The other 1500, representing territorial districts, will be chosen March 26 in nationwide elections.

Some Soviets have objected to the provision of the reforms championed by Gorbachev. They give the party direct representation in the new assembly, which will chose legislators and elect the Soviet president.

The vote by Central Committee members and alternates showed there is considerable opposition not only to Ligachev, but also to Politburo members closely linked to Gorbachev. Customarily such votes are unanimous, but the secret balloting used to chose deputies may have encouraged some to frankly express opposition to senior Kremlin figures.

Alexander N. Yakovlev, said to be Gorbachev's closest adviser, got 59 "no" votes, while the candidacy of Moscow party boss Lev N. Zaikov was rejected by 25 of those voting. Gorbachev installed Zaikov as party boss following the November 1987 sacking of Boris N. Yeltsin.

Twenty-two people also voted against Vadim A. Medvedev, a Gorbachev ally named to the Politburo in September 1988 to assume the ideology portfolio stripped from Ligachev.

Politburo member Viktor P. Nikonov, who serves as deputy to Ligachev in the latter's role as chief of the party's commission on agriculture, received 26 "no" votes.

Along with Gorbachev, the Politburo members who received the widest support were Nikolai N. Slyunkov, chief of the party's commission on social and economic policy, with 19 votes opposed, and former KGB chief Viktor M. Chebrikov, with 13 opposed.

Prime Minister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov, whose popularity soared among Soviets when he was named to head a special Politburo commission directing relief efforts for Armenia's earth-quake, received a broader mandate than Gorbachev with only 10 votes opposed to his candidacy.

Of the remaining members of the 12-man Politburo, Ukrainian party boss Vladimir V. Shcherbitsky and Russian federation president Vitaly I. Vorotnikov are running unopposed in electoral districts. Foreign Minister Eduard A. Shevardnadze's ministerial post bars him from being a candidate.