GREEN PARTY CONVENES AT UCLA : NADER EXPECTED TO WIN NOD BY PROGRESSIVES.

Byline: Susan Goldsmith Daily News Staff Writer

Hoping to spark a nationwide progressive movement, some 300 people from across the country gathered Thursday at UCLA for the Green Party's first presidential nominating convention.

Ralph Nader, a longtime consumer advocate and political activist, is expected to be the party's nominee, and supporters hope his candidacy will break up what they see as the monopoly enjoyed by the two-party system.

``We will finally have, in this election, a real alternative,'' said Los Angeles resident Jim Fadeley, a Green Party member who is attending the four-day convention.

Already, conference organizers said, Nader is on the ballot in 12 states, including California, and they expect to have his name in 30 more in the next few months.

Green Party activists, who now number 85,000 across the United States, say they are sick and tired of American politics, which they insist is overrun with corporate influence.

``This convention is not corporate-sponsored because we're not trying to protect corporations,'' said Doug Heller, a convention organizer from Santa Monica. ``We're trying to renew democracy.''

The Green Party grew out of the environmental movement and was founded in Europe in the 1970s. The party, whose official symbol is a sunflower with a picture of Earth at its center, seeks to promote ecological stewardship, social justice and electoral reform, Heller said.

The convention was launched Thursday evening with a keynote speech from David Brower, the former president of the Sierra Club and a longtime political activist.

Jose Lara, a 20-year-old from Spain who attends the University of California, Los Angeles, said the Green Party is reinvigorating American politics by offering a new kind of candidate and dealing with issues long ignored by other politicians.

``It's good to see how things are changing with the American political system,'' he said. ``The convention proves there are more than just two parties.''

Mike Feinstein, a spokesman for the California Green Party, said he believes Nader will have wide appeal because Americans are fed up with the current political system.

``Nader's Green candidacy gives millions of politically disenfranchised Americans an opportunity to make their vote really count - not waste it on the false choice between Clinton and Dole,'' he said.

Nader, who is expected to be officially nominated at the convention Monday evening, did not attend the convention kickoff. He said in a prepared statement that he hoped his presidential run would energize American politics.

``Every four years the choice between the bad and the worst gets worse,'' Nader said. ``Government is dominated by one major corporate party with two heads, Democrat and Republican.''