To prevent his arch-rival Emiliano Chamorro Vargas, now a lawful candidate, from garnering the votes, Bartolomé Martínez formed a coalition party of relative moderates, the Conservative Republicans.

The elections are seen as a key part of a struggle by relative moderates to wrest power from hard-liners.

BUT even among the relative moderates who make up the council, many of them returned exiles with long experience of living in the West, crucial differences proved unbridgeable.

The religious right will still be a factor, but its numbers will be greatly reduced and those "left behind" are apt to be relative moderates.

However others favored the relative moderates like Ahmed Shah Massoud.

But both major presidential candidates, including the newly chosen nominee of Mr. Tudjman's party, are relative moderates.

Yet as this book records, Mr. Chen and Mr. Wang in fact were relative moderates, who tried to persuade the student protesters not to force a dangerous confrontation with the leadership.

The episode shifted the balance of power in the military from relative moderates to the hard-line faction led by Marcos Pérez Jiménez, which substantially stepped up efforts to repress the clandestine opposition.

Washington's desire for an election in the Serbian-controlled region of Bosnia in order to shore up the position of relative moderates there is facing continuing resistance from Moscow and Belgrade, diplomats here said today.

Mr. Siniora and Mr. Abu Rahme are considered relative moderates in the spectrum of Palestinian opinion.