FINAL ELECTION FIGURES PUBLISHED. The Central Electoral Commission published the official results of the second round of the Russian presidential election on 9 July, Reuters reported.

Boris Yeltsin 53.82% 40,208,384

Gennadii Zyuganov 40.31% 30,113,306

Against both 4.83% 3,604,550

Turnout 68.89% 74,815,898

-- Robert Orttung

PARTIES AND CANDIDATES

COMMUNISTS FORM NEW MOVEMENT. . . The Council of the Popular-Patriotic Bloc announced its intention to form a new political movement at a 6 July meeting called to discuss the loss of their candidate Gennadii Zyuganov in the presidential election, according to Sovetskaya Rossiya on 9 July. Duma member Nikolai Ryzhkov will lead the organizational effort to have the bloc registered by the Justice Ministry while Communist Party leader Zyuganov will apparently retain his position as the bloc’s leader, NTV reported on 6 July. Russian Public TV (ORT) speculated that Ryzhkov’s prominence may mean that Zyuganov will soon lose the leadership. But Izvestiya suggested that Ryzhkov is an unlikely candidate to take over and that he is simply a cover while the leaders define the opposition’s strategy during the next month. The bloc is planning a founding conference on 7 August--shortly before President Boris Yeltsin’s inauguration which is now set for 9 August--when it will form a shadow cabinet and discuss its possible participation in the new government. -- Robert Orttung

. . .DIVISIONS REMAIN. . . Duma Deputy Speaker Sergei Baburin suggested that the opposition electoral bloc may simply disintegrate into the parties that formed it now that the election is over, Ekho Moskvy reported on 6 July. Russian Communist Workers’ Party First Secretary Viktor Tyulkin said that his party and Viktor Anpilov’s Working Russia had not decided whether to join the bloc, Izvestiya reported on 9 July. “If they talk about the battle for socialism and soviet power, we will cooperate with the bloc. But if it is simply about supporting a specific person, that is not our line,” Tyulkin said. -- Robert Orttung

. . . BUT PUBLICISTS SAY CAMPAIGN WAS A SUCCESS, COALITION WILL STAY TOGETHER. Duma deputy Maksim Dianov, deputy chairman of the pro-Zyuganov Spiritual Heritage movement, told OMRI on 5 July that the main achievement of the election campaign was uniting all the left-wing opposition parties behind Gennadii Zyuganov, and therefore the result cannot be considered a failure. He said Zyuganov had fulfilled a difficult task well; as a result, he had won twice as many votes in the presidential election as the Communist Party gained in the December parliamentary elections. He denied rumors that Zyuganov will be replaced as KPRF leader following the election loss. In fact, Dianov claimed that in building the coalition and winning 30 million votes in the second round, Zyuganov had fulfilled the main objectives set for him by the party. He added that contrary to recent reports in the anti-communist press, the KPRF has no intention to change its name or transform itself into a “social democratic” party. Rather, Dianov said, it will retain its name and its position as the largest member of the bloc of popular-patriotic forces. -- Laura Belin in Moscow

U.S. POLITICAL CONSULTANTS HELPED YELTSIN. California Governor Pete Wilson’s former campaign advisers helped President Yeltsin’s campaign effort, according to a report in Time cited by Reuters on 8 July. The team was paid $250,000 plus expenses and worked with Yeltsin’s daughter Tatyana Dyachenko. They offered advice on polls, focus groups, and negative advertisements. The advisers included Joe Shumate, former deputy chief of staff to Wilson, longtime Wilson strategist George Gorton, Steven Moore, a public relations specialist from Washington, and Richard Dresner, a New York-based consultant who had worked on many of the governor’s campaigns. Felix Braynin, a wealthy management consultant who advises Americans investing in Russia, brought the group together, Time reported. The consultants claimed to have played a major role in Yeltsin’s victory, focusing on the anti-communist and wage arrears issues. However, several of Yeltsin’s close advisers were quoted in The New York Times on 9 July as saying that the consultants had made only a marginal contribution. -- Robert Orttung

ANTI-COMMUNIST DUMA COALITION STILL IN DOUBT. Our Home Is Russia leader Sergei Belaev announced on 5 July that Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinskii had agreed in principle to join an anti-communist bloc in the Duma, ITAR-TASS reported. However, Reuters quoted Yavlinskii as connecting his participation to several conditions. Yavlinskii has been one of the government’s harshest critics and did not formally endorse Yeltsin before the election. Vladimir Medvedev, leader of the Russian Regions deputy faction, also distanced himself from the coalition proposals, Radio Rossii reported on 5 July. He rejected the need to remove Duma Speaker Gennadii Seleznev. He also opposed the idea of basing the alliance on opposition to the Duma’s left-wing majority, arguing instead for a focus on adopting good laws. -- Robert Orttung

YAVLINSKII UNLIKELY TO JOIN THE GOVERNMENT. Although President Yeltsin said in his post-electoral address that any politicians who had received support from voters may possibly join the next government, Izvestiya on 6 July argued that Grigorii Yavlinskii will not be invited. The newspaper claimed that Yavlinskii had been offered the position of first deputy prime minister for economic issues between the two rounds of the election. However, the Yabloko leader declined the offer until after the runoff, indicating that he was unwilling to serve as a decoration for Yeltsin’s campaign. After Yeltsin’s victory, Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, whom Yeltsin had assigned to form the government, dismissed the idea of Yavlinskii joining the cabinet; he did not exclude the possibility of including a Communist. As Yavlinskii himself has noted, the members of the current government who are responsible for budget formation and privatization are strongly against his inclusion as a first deputy prime minister since this would undermine their own position. -- Anna Paretskaya

DEMOCRATS CONDUCT KPRF FUNERAL. About 10 activists from the Democratic Union of Russia (DSR) and Ultra-Liberal Union “Youth Solidarity” on 8 July conducted a mock funeral for the Communist Party (KPRF) to mark their candidate’s defeat in the presidential election, Ekho Moskvy and Ekspress-Khronika reported. After a short burial service, the participants launched a red coffin with KPRF written on it into the Moskva River. DSR leader Valeriya Novodvorskaya said that the Communist Party should be banned, adding that this would be milder than the actions the Communists carried out against their enemies. -- Anna Paretskaya

MEDIA

JOURNALISTS DECLARE “LOVE AFFAIR” WITH YELTSIN OVER. Russian TV (RTR) journalist Nikolai Svanidze told viewers on 7 July that the “love affair” between President Yeltsin and the media ended on election day. Having restrained themselves for six months, journalists will now resume their occasionally harsh criticism of the president and some of his policies, he said. Svanidze defended Russian journalists’ behavior during the campaign, saying the media had fought for democracy against a Communist revanche. In addition, he read out excerpts from the latest edition of the nationalist paper Zavtra, which strongly supported Zyuganov, “in order to calm down my most sensitive colleagues who are very upset that in supporting Yeltsin the democratic press was not objective.” Meanwhile, Segodnya on 5 July announced that having fought to secure Russia’s stability and the “victory of common sense over idiocy,” the paper would now “return to where it belongs: in opposition to the authorities.” -- Laura Belin in Moscow

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN BOOSTS POLITICAL ANALYSIS ON TV. The presidential campaign in Russia has encouraged the development of weekly analysis programs on television, Kommersant-Daily reported on 5 July. Aleksandr Nevzorov’s “Dni” (Days) and Nikolai Svanidze’s “Zerkalo” (Mirror) appeared almost simultaneously on ORT and RTR, respectively, both competing with NTV’s “Itogi.” “Dni,” the article argued, is distinguished from “Itogi” both in the degree of professionalism and point of view. Amateur, or as if amateur, footage from exclusive reports and tendentious commentary characterize Nevzorov’s “Dni.” RTR’s “Zerkalo” is also different from “Itogi”--it covers not only political developments but also social, cultural, and sporting events. Moreover, Svanidze is not a direct participant in the events on which he is reporting, while “Itogi’s” Yevgenii Kiselev and Nevzorov act as if they are dispensers of exclusive information. Svanidze is a more distant observer, a type of analysis which will soon become more popular, the newspaper predicted. -- Anna Paretskaya

ANALYSIS

REGIONS WHERE YELTSIN OVERTOOK ZYUGANOV ANALYZED. According to preliminary results, in the second round President Yeltsin came in first in 11 regions in which Gennadii Zyuganov had defeated him in the first round. In several oblasts, including Rostov, Tver, and Tula, Yeltsin seems to have overtaken Zyuganov by winning the lion’s share of votes cast for Aleksandr Lebed and Grigorii Yavlinskii in the first round, NTV reported on 7 July. But in some of Russia’s republics, including Bashkortostan and Dagestan (see OMRI Russian Presidential Election Survey, 5 July 1996), Yeltsin’s vote increased by far more than the combined number of ballots cast for Lebed and Yavlinskii. Central Electoral Commission political analyst Dmitrii Oreshkin attributed these gains to Moscow’s ability to change the orientation of the ruling elites in these republics between the rounds. “I’m not going to talk about the means by which this task was achieved, whether by carrot or stick,” Oreshkin continued. Other analysts have suggested that fraud was used to boost Yeltsin’s vote totals in some regions in the “red belt” and Caucasus, the Moscow Tribune reported on 6 July. They noted that the number of spoiled ballots was higher in the regions where Yeltsin made the largest gains in the second round, suggesting that during the counting stage, some election officials may have spoiled ballots that had been cast for Zyuganov. -- Laura Belin in Moscow

INDEPENDENT MONITORING GROUP: ELECTION COVERAGE WAS UNFAIR. A team from the European Institute for the Media has issued a preliminary report stating that Russian media coverage was so biased in favor of President Yeltsin that it “undermined the fairness of the election.” The report argues that there was a “thoroughly unfair campaign in the electronic media.” In the run-up to the first round, 53% of broadcasting time was devoted to Yeltsin, 18% to Zyuganov, and less than 7% to any other candidate. In monitoring the two weeks’ coverage between the two rounds, they scored Yeltsin mentions at plus 247 and Zyuganov at minus 240. The report also criticizes the Russian media’s failure to mention Yeltsin’s disappearance from the campaign in the final days. The team consisted of Professor Dr. Bernd-Peter Lange (Germany), Richard Schoonhoven (Holland), Jonathan Steele (U.K.), and Benedicte Berner (Sweden). -- Peter Rutland

PAPER: MODERN CAMPAIGN TECHNIQUES THE KEY TO SUCCESS. President Yeltsin’s victory depended on his ability to use modern campaign techniques, Obshchaya gazeta argued in its 4-10 July edition. Yeltsin’s success drew from his ability to define the voters’ choice as that between Zyuganov and himself, or between “the past and the future.” This depiction of the campaign made it very difficult for Zyuganov to win over non-communist votes. Yeltsin, on the other hand had appeared in many different roles during his five year rule--reformer, state-builder, father of the nation--and thus was able to appeal to a broader coalition. Yeltsin was able to create a “virtual reality” in a media campaign that underlined his concern for the personal fate of individual voters. Yeltsin’s monopolization of the airwaves allowed him to use his numerous regional trips to create the image of a “tele-hero,” showing that his campaign was on the offensive and allowing him to ignore his opponent. Zyuganov’s campaign, in contrast, seemed old-fashioned, as if it were from the 1930s. Even in the limited access that Zyuganov had to broadcast his message, he failed to come up with an effective thematic campaign. Support from local elites had only a limited impact on the result, since most voters rejected any attempts from above to tell them how to vote, the newspaper argued. Yeltsin and Aleksandr Lebed made a good team even before they began their public alliance after the first round. Lebed appealed to the voters who wanted order and stabilization and brought this part of the electorate to Yeltsin. Aman Tuleev, who withdrew in favor of Zyuganov, did little to broaden the Communist leader’s base of supporters, and did not attract the Muslim vote to the Communists as had been hoped. The article concluded that campaign consultants played a major role in Yeltsin’s victory and that Zyuganov waas hurt by his reliance on “traditional bureaucratic methods.” -- Robert Orttung

ZYUGANOV SEES TWO-PARTY SYSTEM DEVELOPING. . . Gennadii Zyuganov said a two-party political system is developing in Russia, Pravda reported on 6 July. One party is based on Zyuganov’s “popular-patriotic bloc” and supports the idea of strengthening the Russian state, legality, and justice. Zyuganov sees the movement based on his electoral bloc as a “wide national association” that will be “wider than any party.” The second party is the “party of power.” The much-heralded “third force” did not materialize, and all politicians from Zhirinovsky to Yavlinskii ended up joining that party, Zyuganov said. He rejected the idea of creating a social democratic party, saying that now is not the time for emergence of a new political organization. He added, “Do you consider the support of 30 million citizens a loss? I do not . . . It means that next time we will receive 50 million votes. . .” Zyuganov declined to publicly discuss any mistakes in his campaign, saying only that a conference of the bloc’s leaders would analyze the election results. -- Robert Orttung and Laura Belin in Moscow

. . . WHILE OTHER LESS OPTIMISTIC. Pravda on 6 July also quoted an unnamed Communist Party member who viewed the election differently. Rather than blaming the anti-communist media or the “party of power” for Zyuganov’s loss, he said “I consider the election results an enormous tragedy, the scale of which we have not yet fully realized. It is a tragedy for the country, a tragedy for the people who surrendered one of their last battle-fronts, their Stalingrad, and in exchange chose Pepsi. In a philosophical sense, it’s a victory of gluttony over a person’s spiritual components. In a political sense, it’s a major failure of the strategy of the left bloc, which was not able to compare its resources to those opposing it, place the correct emphasis on its ideological and tactical plans, and carry out qualified and impartial analytical work. Of course, there’s no place for despondency and dismay, but we must draw the necessary conclusions.” -- Laura Belin in Moscow

Compiled by Robert Orttung; edited by Peter Rutland and copyedited by Victor Gomez