A year ago,
most pundits and talking heads repeated different versions of the same analysis:
Boris Yeltsin was finished. Critics of Yeltsin's administration cited ill health,
rumors of alcoholism, an unpopular war in Chechnya, vast public dissatisfaction
with the state of reforms and increasingly tough economic times. But in the past
few months, Yeltsin transformed himself from an ailing recluse to a populist
dynamo. He bulldogged his way through campaign stops and photo ops, dancing at a
pop concert with fierce, arm-pumping concentration in one memorable moment. "With
new advisors like former privatization minister Anatoly Chubais, and NTV head
Igor Malashenko finally telling him some unvarnished truths, Yeltsin began to
react to conditions in the country," says TIME Moscow correspondent Sally Donnelly. "It does not take a genius to
realize Russians are disgusted by the poverty, corruption and crime." Over the
course of his campaign Yeltsin promised different constituencies a sum totalling
more than the Russia's 1996 GDP, and last week he paid uncompensated teachers with
$1 billion he acquired by raiding the Central Bank's currency reserves.
He and his cohorts kept up an unrelenting barrage of anticommunist rhetoric,
prophesying that civil war and general catastrope would accompany a Communist
victory. Not to be underestimated are the continuing, albeit rocky, Chechen peace
talks -- an initiative which Russian voters, tired of the war's deaths and expense,
appreciate. "Many voters were apprehensive," says Donnelly. "They feared that a
Zyuganov victory would mean another round of changes, and upheavals. Most
Russians are tired of changes and revolutions, and see that under Yeltsin,
instability has receded." To beat Zyuganov in the final round, Yeltsin will have
to broaden his appeal and recruit voters who originally voted for other
candidates. Yeltsin's camp seems ready to celebrate, their candidate is after
all, ahead. But the election is still his to lose. --Terence Nelan
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
14.7 % |
 |
7.41 % |
 |
5.76 % |
 |
0.52 % |
| 70 % voter turnout |
|
