Vladimir Zhirinovsky 1996 presidential campaign
Zhirinovsky's campaign unofficially began shortly after the conclusion of the 1991 RSFSR presidential election.
He also travelled to locations such as collective farms on the outskirts of Moscow as well as cities such as Krasanador, Leningrad, and Minsk.
[1] After the fall of the Soviet Union, Zhirinovsky's ambitions turned back to the presidency of Russia, which was now the country's ultimate head-of-government.
[1] This ultimately proved to be a successful effort, as Zhirinovsky stole much of these groups' support base by co-opting their bigotry.
[1] As a means of furthering his political aspirations, Zhirinovsky decided that he would run in the election for Mayor of Moscow.
[1] His pledge was to "improve life quickly, to stamp out crime at last and to bring order to Moscow and then all of Russia.
LDPR had won 22.9% of the proportional representation vote (placing first), earning it 59 of those seats (more than any party).
The other half of the Duma's seats were filled by the direct elections of candidates by voters in single-member districts.
[8][9] The strong performance of LDPR in the 1993 legislative election greatly bolstered Zhirinovsky's stature in Russian politics.
He is simply a hero from a Russian fairy tale...Yeltsin goes about politics, not by Freidman's blueprints, but by intuition.
[1] In the summer of 1994 both Zhirinvosky and Yeltsin separately embarked on Volga River cruises in order to meet face-to-face with members of the Russian electorate.
[1] When the LDPR flew to North Korea to meet with the new Kim Jong-il regime, the Kremlin denied his plane approval for a requested layover in Kemerovo.
[8][10] Some argued that had Zhirinovsky maintained a moderate and diplomatic profile while dealing with the Western media, he might have received some degree of tolerance, perhaps even support, from the West.
[11] Following its performance in the 1993 legislative elections, Zhirinovsky's LDPR had the potential to be at the core of an organized opposition.
[8][10] Ultimately, Zhirinovsky's faction split, by 1995, the LDPR found itself competing with the resurgent Communist Party for nationalist-leaning voters.
[15][16] In February, Zhirinovsky lent his endorsement to Pat Buchanan, the Reform Party candidate for the United States presidential election.
After Buchanan distanced himself from this endorsement, Zhirinovsky attacked him, writing an open letter which said, "You turned out to be just like Clinton and other corrupt politicians, moved by greed and vanity, not by love for the fatherland...Pat, you're a piece of crap.
Zhirinovsky believed that he would be able to garner a strong enough support amongst incarcerated convicts to qualify him for the second round of the election.
Zhirinvosky's party had won the vote in Perm several months earlier, in the 1995 legislative election.
However, despite making a last-minute campaign visit in the closing weeks before the election, Zhirinovsky lost the city, coming third behind both Yeltsin and Zyuganov.
Russian voters appeared to view him more as an entertaining figure than a feasible political leader.
Zhirinovsky had lost much of his share of the nationalist vote to Lebed, who had performed surprisingly strong in the election.
[23] The LDPR defined its members as being individuals who do not separate their personal interests from those of the motherland, a "creator capable of carrying out the priority tasks of the motherland aimed at preserving peace and raising the standard of living of all the population of our vast country.
"[11] Zhirinovsky had, during the 1993 legislative campaign, referred to LDPR as the, “center-right party”, and claimed that its views were such that it could potentially be allied with Women of Russia and Civic Union in the State Duma.
[11] Whilst other candidates took advantage of their allocated free airtime by airing taped montages or scripted remarks, the videos that Zhirinovsky provided for his free airtime often sounded like he was speaking extemporaneously, often improvising and ridiculing the advertisements of rival campaigns.
