[1] It had been rumored in late-April 1991 that Bakatin was going to be selected as the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's nominee in the Russian presidential election.
[2][3] In early may, some figures in Russian politics believed that, if he ran, Murashev was poised to be Yeltsin's strongest opponent.
[5][6] Launching his campaign in mid-May, Bakatin selected chairman of the Council of Nationalities of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet Ramazan Abdulatipov (one of presidential frontrunner Boris Yeltsin's primary political rivals) to be his running mate.
He hoped that Abdulatipov would help him to appeal to voters in the Autonomous Republics of Russia, who cumulatively made-up 14% of the Russian electorate.
[7] Despite the fact that the Communist Party of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic had officially had backed Nikolai Ryzhkov, upon Bakatin's entry into the race some members of the party commented that they believed that Bakatin would be a superior candidate to face Yeltsin in a second-round of the election.
[8] Bakatin asserted that it was imperative that whoever won the election would need to pass anti-corruption legislation as well as a legal act on state service.
He believed that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union suffered from the fact that it was unable to, "coherently say words like 'private property.