Boris Yeltsin 1996 presidential campaign
Yeltsin was ultimately reelected, despite having originally been greatly expected to lose the election due to an immensely low level of public support prior to the official launch of his campaign.
[1][3][4][5][6][7] He was able to accomplish this due to a number of strategies and factors, including benefitting campaign spending[8] which far exceeded the limits set by election laws, benefitting from an immense media bias in his favor, utilizing the advantages of his office, campaigning vigorously ahead of the first round, painting Communist Party nominee Gennady Zyuganov (his chief opponent) negatively, actively working to convince the Russian electorate that there existed a duopoly which left them no other choice but Yeltsin or Zyuganov (and convincing them that Yeltsin was the lesser of two evils), and repositioning himself to better appeal to the electorate.
[1] The underperformance of the pro-Yeltsin forces in the 1993 legislative election alarmed some in Yelstin's camp of an urgent need for Yeltsin to revive his faltering public image.
[23] Under their new strategy, the campaign would also work to shift the narrative of the election into a referendum on whether voters wanted to return to their communist past (with Zyuganov), or continue with reforms (with Yeltsin).
[9][10] Despite some efforts to revive the public's perception, Yeltsin still possessed a strongly negative image, with both domestic and international observers taking note his occasionally erratic behavior.
[22][31][32] The controversial diverse Joseph Stalin was found to be polling with a more favorable opinion by the Russian public, scoring both lower negatives and higher positives than Yeltsin.
[12] There were some observers who believed that Yeltsin still could be able to utilize his reputable political instincts combined with the immense patronage and power belonging to the presidency in order to pull off an upset victory.
[35] On 15 March, the Communist Party, which constituted the largest faction in the State Duma, moved to pass a (largely symbolic) non-binding resolution denouncing the Dissolution of the Soviet Union.
[40] That same day, Democratic Russia leaders Lev Ponomaryov and Gleb Yakunin gave Yeltsin their personal endorsements, and encouraged members of their party to follow their lead.
[44] In Krasnodar, Yeltsin announced new state handouts, promised veterans that he would increase their pension 125% within a month, pledged greater benefits for the Cossacks, declared building relations with the Commonwealth of Independent States to be Russia's most important foreign policy concern, and announced his intention to sign decrees stimulating the economic development of Krasnodar Krai and Russia's agro-industrial complex.
Yeltsin also declared that Russia's Black Sea Fleet, partly based in Krasnodar Krai, to be a, "indispensable element of Russian strategic security.
Yeltsin said that, although the Volgograd region had consistently voted Communist in past elections, he felt morally obligated to visit the site due to its importance.
Following the signing ceremony, Yeltsin boarded a plane and immediately embarked on a surprise six-hour trip to Chechnya, where he visited soldiers and declared victory.
[1] Some viewed Yeltsin as benefiting from Russian voters in the 1996 election possessing a greater concern with choosing the candidate that championed the political and economic future that they preferred with Russia, rather than evaluating the incumbent's performance.
While addressing an assembly of Cossacks on behalf of the campaign, Lebed said particular Russian religious sects, including Mormons, were "mold and scum" which had been "artificially brought into our country with the purpose of perverting, corrupting, and ultimately breaking up our state".
It made promises to complete economic reform, to rewrite the tax code, compensate swindled investors, strengthen Russia's social welfare system and turn the nation's army into a modern professional fighting-force.
[47] In late January 1996 and early February 1996, Yeltsin made promises to spend billions of dollars in support of coal miners in order to end workers strikes.
However, in a deft political move, Yeltsin declared that the decisions as to which Chechens would be granted amnesty would be decided by the State Duma, which was controlled by the Communist Party.
[47] Yelstin promised that, for frozen regions of Northern Russia, he would subsidize children's holidays and build retirement homes in the south for their miners.
[1] To boost his image as a reformer, and to downplay the visibility of his reliance om his secretive team of Kremlin advisors (which played negatively with the public), Yeltsin strategically made campaign appearances alongside notable political figures from outside of his inner-circle.
For instance, Kommersant (one of the most prominent business newspapers in the country) published an anti-communist paper called Ne Dai Bog (meaning, "God forbid").
[1] At ORT, a special committee was placed in charge of planning a marathon of anticommunist films and documentaries to be broadcast on the channel ahead of the election.
[12] The day before he announced his candidacy, in a move some observers believed was an attempt to intimidate the media, Yeltsin accused Russia's state television and radio of peddling "a batch of lies" in its news reports and fired RTR's chief, Oleg Poptsov.
This particular ad had conveyed an image of a close two-party race (in spite of reality being that Russia's political landscape was then a multi-party system) in order to urge voter turnout.
The Russian airwaves were flooded during on Victory Day with videos in which World War II veterans recalled their service and hinted at an ominous future under communist leadership.
[74] David E. Hoffman of The Washington Post reported that, during the election effort, Russian oligarchs profited from special deals involving low-cost government bonds.
[3] In fact, during Yeltsin's 1991 presidential campaign, the Democratic Russia-run national initiative group supporting his candidacy had held a two-day series of meetings in which they solicited advice from a team of five American consultants.
[79] The consultants, most notably, boasted about what they purported was their critical in role in the success of campaign in a Time magazine cover-story which hyperbolically proclaimed, "Yanks to the Rescue".
[1] These included former Press Minister Sergei Gryzonov, Presidential Chief of Staff Nikolai Yegorov, and President of the "Politika" Foundation Vyacheslav Nikonov.
[35] A separate campaign organization existed in Moscow, dedicated to rallying votes in the nation's capital, which was a rare bastion of strong support for Yeltsin.
