CNN - Russian contenders battle apathy as runoff approaches

Russian contenders battle apathy as runoff approaches

June 27, 1996
Web posted at: 9:30 p.m. EDT (0130 GMT)

MOSCOW (CNN) -- With the outcome of upcoming runoff elections too close to predict, Russian President Boris Yeltsin is fighting to win Communists to his side. But his campaign may be losing some of its steam.

Before the June 15 election, a rally for Yeltsin would have been well attended.

A rally held Thursday to court the youth vote was attended by no one but the media. Russians seem to have lost interest in the campaign activities of the remaining contenders, Yeltsin and Communist Party chief Gennady Zyuganov.

Russian businessmen are quietly optimistic, saying they believe Yeltsin will win and markets will go up. But for now, they are pushing their money out of the country. As a further hedge against a Communist victory, some Russians are even delaying paying their taxes, which leaves them more money with which to flee the country.

"To be honest, we did not expect (the economy would be) such a strong influence of the election campaign," said Yevgeny Yasin, Russian economics minister. "I'm absolutely sure that this is directly connected with the polarization of forces, Communist versus Boris Yeltsin."

A dream deferred

The trouble for Boris Yeltsin is that he was responsible for bringing Russians the capitalist dream of rags to riches, and Russia believed the transformation would take place overnight. Russia's continued exclusion from membership in the Group of Seven leading industrial nations is just one indication that the country is not yet ready to play with the big kids.

Yeltsin declined his invitation to the G-7 meeting in Lyons, France, sending his prime minister instead. He still wistfully calls the group the G-8.

"Russia will still be there for the political dialogue, but really it doesn't have much to contribute on the economic dialogue," said Greg Guroff, an analyst at the Center For Post-Soviet Studies. "You have got seven countries over here, and one sitting there waiting for help."

The disappointingly slow move to a market economy may explain why both Yeltsin and
Zyuganov are toning down their promises.

"I would avoid any promises and I guess that's a mistake of Mr. Yeltsin, that he continually repeats, 'Wait until July, wait until New Year's.' I guess that it will take years and years before they build a normal life," said Pyotr Aven, president of Alpha Bank.

Zyuganov's election preparations seem designed to counter Yeltsin's campaign ads, which remind Russians of the repression of the Communist era. He took advantage of free television air time to describe himself as just an "ordinary person born on Russian soil who loves it, who holds it dear, who worries a lot about what happens in it."

A talk with church leaders

He visited Patriarch Alexiy II of Russia's Orthodox Christian Church and other religious leaders Thursday, promising that if the Communist Party regained power, believers would not be persecuted as they were under the Soviet regime.

He said his party had abandoned its belief in state-sponsored atheism, he said, and he wants to advocate a more active role for the church in many public arenas, including social services and peace-making.

Although Yeltsin has won the endorsements of several candidates he beat in the first round, Zyuganov says he is not worried. "An electorate can't be inherited like serfs," he said.

With apathy on the rise, Yeltsin's most vocal message is for Russians to get out and vote, again. Analysts say at least 60 percent of the Russian electorate must turn out for the runoffs on July 3 because Zyuganov's supporters are more likely to vote.

Correspondent Eileen O'Connor and Reuters contributed to this report.

Pivotal Elections: Russia

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Russian contenders battle apathy as runoff approaches

A dream deferred

A talk with church leaders

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