Running as a socially liberal, politically centrist, and democratic-minded candidate, he was eliminated after placing fourth in the first-round of the election.
[5] Despite having made efforts to grow its base of support and establish regional organizations, Yabloko was still a Moscow-centric party.
While it had obtained a number of strong regional figures, the overwhelming majority of high-profile party activists were muscovites.
[6] This meant that he was competing with Yeltsin, Lebed, and Fyodorov's campaigns, which similarly aimed to capture pro-reform voters.
Yavilinsky stated that a communist victory would threaten Russian's rights to practice free speech and own property.
Yavlinsky warned, "If the Communists come to power, things will only get worse" He predicted that Zhirinosky would withdraw from the race before the election, benefiting the two frontrunners (Zyuganov and Yeltsin).
The committee was formed by Yelena Bonner (wife of Andrei Sakharov), Sergei Kovalev, Ella Pamfilova and Arkady Murashev.
[9] However, aiming to boost Yeltsin's prospects, many the Russian media outlets largely downplayed its coverage of Yavlinsky and other candidates.
[13][14] Unlike other major political parties in Russia, Yavlinsky's Yabloko had consistently opposed the Chechen War.
[16] By 1995, in an effort to further differentiate themselves from Democratic Choice of Russia, Yabloko had begun to avoid explicitly presenting itself as a pro-Western party.
[5] Yavkinsky opposed reductions of civil freedoms, and stood in strong opposition to the establishment of an authoritarian leadership.
[5] Yabloko's economic platform sought to focus on a different order of priorities than both Yeltsin's regime and other democratic opposition parties had.
Yavlinsky had declared, As far as economic policy is concerned, the most important task for us is to create a singleeconomic space embracing the entire CIS, to demonopolize the economy, to promote the development of a competitive medium, to make it so that proper ownership relations established in the country (in the sphere of land ownership first of all), to make it so that economic reforms develop from grass roots, not from top down.