Gennady Zyuganov 1996 presidential campaign

So convinced was the Communist Party in Zyuganov's prospects, that before his campaign even began they had already begun discussing who would be appointed in his presidential administration.

Early on, Zyuganov benefited from a portion of the Russian electorate perceiving him to be a more favorable alternative to other opposition candidates, such as Alexander Lebed and Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

[1] In rebuilding the party, the party had reactivated its youth wing (Komsomol), strengthened relations with trade unions and women's groups sympathetic to the communist cause, and had begun to court business figures who they hoped could be convinced would benefit from a "stable future" under a CPRF leadership.

[1] Additionally, Zyguyanov and other members of the party used the travel privileges they were granted in their capacity as deputies in the Duma in order to make trips to Russia's various regions (often by train).

[7] To improve the image of the communists, his party elected Gennadiy Seleznyov as Chairman of the State Duma on January 17.

Zyuganov himself traveled on a tour of western nations in an attempt to reassure the international community that a Communist victory would not threaten foreign investment in Russia.

[7] Following the legislative election, an internal poll revealed that nearly 20% of the Communist Party's members would prefer a "more charismatic" candidate for president.

[10] It was suggested that Anatoly Lukyanov, Aman Tuleyev or Pyotr Romanov might challenge Zyuganov for the party's nomination.

[1] By the end of February, Zyuganov had secured the backing of the three largest leftist political organizations that had failed to win any seats in the 1995 legislative elections.

[7] The far-left[4] Labour Russia's leader, Viktor Anpilov, had originally stated that he would seek-out a candidate that promised to liquidate the office of the presidency, restore Soviet power, and reverse all privatization.

[7] Power to the People's head, Nikolai Ryzhkov (who had been Yeltsin's main opponent in the 1991 election), announced his party's support of Zyuganov in early February.

[9] By securing such broad support so early in the campaign, Zyuganov helped to solidify his position as a frontrunner and as the leading opposition candidate.

If Zyuganov could rely on the support of the twenty-one million voters that had voted CPRF and Russia's two other communist parties in the 1995 parliamentary election, as well as the eight million voters who had voted for Russia's various nationalist parties (not including Zhirinovsky's LDPR), he would be able to win the first round of the election and secure himself as the frontrunner to win the second round.

[1] While both Alexander Lebed and Grigory Yavlinsky defeated Zyuganov in hypothetical polling for the second-round, neither of their campaigns had reasonable odds of making it beyond the first round.

"[12] Having already consolidated his base's support early in the year, Zyuganov's campaign shifted their focus on reaching new voters.

[4] In February, when at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Zyuganov worked to try and calm concerned foreign financiers, who were worried of the ramifications of a communist victory in Russia.

[8] However, on March 15 the Communist Party acted in the State Duma to pass a largely symbolic non-binding resolution denouncing the Belavezha Accords.

[11] This was intended to be a purely symbolic measure, meaningless except to remind Russians of the assertion that Yeltsin had overridden the will of the people in breaking-up the Soviet Union.

[11] It became clear that what had originally been meant as an inconsequential and purely symbolic resolution had acquired some very real ramifications.

"[1] In spite of this development, Zyuganov persisted in campaigning as he had before, traveling the country delivering many of long, often pessimistic, stump speeches.

[8] Quite consequentially, polling also showed that the electorate no longer trusted Zyuganov to be any more successful in dealing with the conflict in Chechnya that Yeltsin.

The highly unpopular Chechen War had once been thought to be the issue that would guarantee Yeltsin's loss in the election.

[22] With limited resources, and a very brief campaign period, Zyuganov's team urged him to soften his image with sentimental television commercials.

[22] Zyuganov's team also urged him to focus on issues while minimizing his mentions of Communist ideology (which was off-putting to many voters).

[1] Most of the people living in the Red Belt were either industrial or agricultural workers who had high levels of support for communism and the USSR.

Thus, these southern regions of the nation were more willing to vote in support of the communist opposition than wealthier zones in the North.

[25] The Communist Party could not afford to buy extra airtime, and thus were largely unable to run television advertisements.

[25] News coverage of Zyuganov was negatively biased, as Russian media oligarchs heavily favored Yeltsin's candidacy.