Boris Yeltsin 1996 presidential campaign

Yelstin's approval had tanked after he had introduced significant reforms meant to push Russia towards a market-based economy. He had eliminated the majority of Soviet-era price controls, privatized a large number of significant state assets, permitted the ownership of private property, welcomed free-market principles, and additionally allowed for a stock exchange to be established and for commodities exchanges and private banks to be created. He found a base of support among liberal and pro-western democratic movements. In 1990, those movements united to form the Democratic Russia. This group held a base of power primarily in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and the Urals. ;1993 following the 1993 constitutional crisis Following the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis, the Yeltsin government adopted a more nationalist and authoritarian agenda than they had previously championed. while another reason might have been tension between Yeltsin and key members of the Russia's Choice party such as Yegor Gaidar and Boris Fyodorov. Zhirinovsky had espoused a protofascist views and "law-and-order" rhetoric laced with racist undertones. In the 1995 legislative elections, Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democratic Party placed second with 11.18% of the vote. Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin's centrist, non-reformist, party Our Home – Russia won 10.13%, placing third. The largest reformist party at the time, Grigory Yavlinsky's Yabloko won only 6.9% of the vote. ==Campaign strategies==

Soskovets strategy Yeltsin's original, abandoned, campaign strategy had been devised by Oleg Soskovets in response to the defeat of pro-Yeltsin parties in the 1993 and 1995 legislative elections. Soskovets decided that for Yeltsin to win in 1996, he would need to adopt some of Zhirinovsky's style of rhetoric. On March 23, in a meeting with Anatoly Chubais and members of Semibankirschina that polling showed him to be headed towards a defeat. Others, such as Yegor Gaidar, urged Yeltsin to forgo seeking a second term, so that they could instead run a reform-minded candidate that would capable of winning the election. On March 23, day after the meeting with the Semibankirschina team, Yeltsin fired Soskovets, officially ending the Soskovets campaign strategy. Under their new strategy, the campaign would also work to shift the narrative of the election into a referendum on whether voters wanted to return to their communist past (with Zyuganov), or continue with reforms (with Yeltsin). Also important to the campaign's new strategy was to highlight the left's radical views and to portray Zyuganov as a government bureaucrat with no practical leadership experience. Under their new strategy, the campaign sought to replicate factors that had previously contributed to his victories in the 1991 presidential election and the 1993 referendums. Yet another factor he replicated was the allocation of funds to popular causes, something he had also done in advance of the 1991 election and 1994 referendum. He also repeated tactics used in 1991 and 1993 by firing unpopular officials, slowing down the pace of economic reforms (a plurality of Russians felt that the reforms needed to be more gradual), and promising to pivot a number policies in the direction favored by the public. Another factor was to create an overwhelmingly pro-Yelstin media bias, similar to the one that Yeltsin had benefited from in the leadup to the 1993 referendums. ==Campaigning in first round==

Early developments , then Mayor of St. Petersburg, was considered to run for president instead of Yeltsin Many predicted that Russia would succumb to the same trend as many other post-Soviet transition democracies, where nationalist politicians unseated incumbent leaders. Before Yeltsin announced his intention to seek a second term, there was speculation that he would retire from politics due to his ailing health and the growing disapproval of his performance. In January 1996, Yeltsin distributed an internal memo, which was soon leaked in the press. The memo urged his government to undertake radical measures to ensure he would retain power. One of the suggested actions was to dismiss regional governors that did not provide a sufficient level of support to Our Home – Russia during the 1995 legislative elections. Other actions suggested in the memo were to channel government money into his election campaign, use state-run media to bolster his candidacy, cut funding to state-owned regional newspapers that supported opposition candidates, and to ensure that positions in the Central Election Commission were occupied by individuals favoring Yeltsin. The controversial diverse Joseph Stalin was found to be polling with a more favorable opinion by the Russian public, scoring both lower negatives and higher positives than Yeltsin. Many observers saw Yeltsin as an unpopular underdog. Yeltsin's campaign had access to the resources of agencies such as the FSB the FAPSI. In early March, Yeltsin decreed that 40 million landowners in Russia would have the right to buy and sell property. This move made land a tradable commodity in Russia for the first time since 1917. Yeltsin hoped that this would benefit peasants and provide them a reason to embrace reforms, thus undermining their support for the communists. The Communists proved unable to effectively respond to this development. On 27 March 1996, Yeltsin benefited from International Monetary Fund director Michel Camdessus' approval of a $10.2 billion loan for Russia. Spring 1996 Throughout the Winter of 1996, Soskovets' strategy had been losing traction within Yelstin’s inner circle, and, at the start of Spring, the strategy was entirely abandoned when Yeltsin fired Soskovets as his campaign manager. That same day, Democratic Russia leaders Lev Ponomaryov and Gleb Yakunin gave Yeltsin their personal endorsements, and encouraged members of their party to follow their lead. Yeltsin traveled around the country and visited factories, met with voters, and faced hecklers. As an advantage of his incumbency, Yeltsin had the liberty of traveling on the presidential jet. In contrast, Zyuganov had to travel by commercial flights. In April, for the first time, a number of polls were showing Yeltsin leading Zyuganov. Polls also showed that Yeltsin's support was higher amongst younger, urban, and higher-income Russians, while Zyuganov's support was higher amongst older, poorer, and rural voters. In early May, Yeltsin refused Zyuganov's challenge to hold a debate, saying, He went on to say that he did not have time to debate all of the ten candidates, and it would not be fair to debate just one. Yeltsin's campaign got a boost from the announcement of a $10 billion loan to the Russian government from the International Monetary Fund. Yeltsin's campaign received a boost when, on 27 May, he and acting Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev signed a cease-fire. Following the signing ceremony, Yeltsin boarded a plane and immediately embarked on a surprise six-hour trip to Chechnya, where he visited soldiers and declared victory. This fulfilled a promise that Yeltsin had made that he would personally visit war-torn Chechnya before the day of the election. Back in April, Filatov sought for the campaign to avoid anti-Communist campaigning (as this risked providing Zyuganov free publicity). However, by June, he had revised his approach, and the campaign issued direct criticism of the Communist platform. Near the end of the campaign, Dzhokhar Dudayev's widow endorsed Yeltsin for President of Russia. This further neutralized criticisms of his handling of the Chechen War. The campaign held GOTV in the run up to the day of the election. This included organizing rock concerts aimed at increasing youth turnout. A June concert at Red Square drew 100,000 attendees. In cities such as Perm, concerts were held the weekend prior to the election. Result of the first round The government's decision to allow a wide election-day voting window (with polls open from 8 AM to 10 PM) was believed to allow for a greater voter turnout. Experts speculated that a stronger turnout would benefit Yeltsin's campaign. Yeltsin confidently issued predictions that he would place first in the first-round. However, his campaign's leaders kept their cards fair closer to their chest. Ultimately, Yeltsin did win the first round, albeit by only 3 percentage points. In carrying 35% Yeltsin placed between five and ten points lower than public polling had predicted he would. However, he had placed relatively near the projections of the campaign's internal polling. Many in Yeltsin's camp were actually happy that the result was close. They believed that a close margin would help motivate pro-reformist voters to participate in the second round of voting. They had feared a landslide first-round result in his favor would lead Yeltsin's supporters to be less motivated to vote in the second round. Some viewed Yeltsin as benefiting from Russian voters in the 1996 election possessing a greater concern with choosing the candidate that championed the political and economic future that they preferred with Russia, rather than evaluating the incumbent's performance. Yeltsin had also benefited from the inadequacy of his opponents' campaign efforts. Much of the opposition were mired with technical ineptness, ideological confusion, and political baggage. Many of his opponents had effectively self-sabotaged their candidacies, making it completely unnecessary for Yeltsin to concentrate any efforts on combatting their candidacies. ==Campaigning in the second round==

After the results of the first round were announced, Yeltsin's campaign publicly expressed confidence that was that Yeltsin was going to win the next round, declaring their belief that most of Yavlinski, Zhirinovski, Lebed and Fyodorov's supporters were going to vote for Yeltsin in the second round. During the first round, Yeltsin had brokered a secretive arrangement in which Lebed had agreed to support him in the second round. A week into the runoff campaign, Yeltsin fell ill upon returning from a campaign visit to Kaliningrad. For a period of time after the heart attack, Yeltsin ceased making campaign appearance and disappeared from public view. To cover up Yeltsin's absence, Yeltsin's campaign team created a "virtual Yeltsin" shown in the media through staged interviews that never happened and pre-recorded radio addresses. He later returned to the campaign trail, however, with a drastically lighter travel itinerary than he had in the first round. During the runoff campaign, one of the advertising agencies working for Yeltsin's campaign printed over a million adhesive-backed posters with Zyuganov's image on them and the warning, "This could be your last chance to buy food!" These posters appealed to a genuine fear of hunger amongst the Russian populace, and were plastered on the windows of food markets all across the country. This proved to be an effective scare tactic. Posters were printed by the campaign in the closing weeks which warned "The Communist Party hasn't changed its name and it won't change its methods". By evoking unpleasant memories of communist rule, the campaign hoped to spur turnout amongst anticommunist voters and weaken the coalition between nationalists and Communists. Despite the tone of his campaign material, a little more than a week before Election Day, Yeltsin indicated a willingness to work with the Communists declaring that he was, "ready for dialogue and co-operation with all those for whom the fate of Russia is a top priority", including "honest Communists". Near the close of the runoff campaign, Lebed became a burden to the campaign. Lebed made several incendiary remarks, which attracted controversy. On 26 June, just a week before the election. While addressing an assembly of Cossacks on behalf of the campaign, Lebed said particular Russian religious sects, including Mormons, were "mold and scum" which had been "artificially brought into our country with the purpose of perverting, corrupting, and ultimately breaking up our state". In these remarks Lebed said that such "foul sects", needed to be outlawed be outlawed because they posed "a direct threat to Russia's security". He argued that Russia needed "established, traditional religions", which he named as being Russian Orthodoxy, Islam and Buddhism (noticeably omitting Judaism from this list of acceptable religions). On the day of the election, when Yeltsin made an appearance at a polling station in order to cast his own vote, he was described as appearing "shaky", drawing further concerns about his health. Result of the second round Yeltsin won the final round of the election by a decisive margin, managing to defeat Zyuganov by nearly ten million votes. On the night of the election, Zyuganov publicly conceded the race to Yeltsin, and congratulated him on his victory. Yelstin was re-inaugurated as President the following month. Yeltsin's reelection defied a pattern amongst post-Soviet transition democracies of nationalists unseating incumbent leaders during their immediate bids for reelection. ==Platform and positions==

Yeltsin was generally seen as representing the status quo (as his reelection would effectively grant a continuation of his leadership and policies), whereas Zyuganov was seen as opposing the status quo. On 31 May 1996, Yeltsin announced his official campaign program at an event in the city of Perm. He also promised to spend trillions of rubles rebuilding the war-torn region. He named Prime Minister Chernomyrdin, who was more favorably viewed by Chechens, as heading these efforts. He announced that troops would be withdrawn from areas already secured. He also announced amnesty would be granted to most Chechen fighters. However, in a deft political move, Yeltsin declared that the decisions as to which Chechens would be granted amnesty would be decided by the State Duma, which was controlled by the Communist Party. The treaty would establish a Union State. It would also establish a "Community of Sovereign Republics" that would include supranational bodies for the military, environmental, and technical fields. A common currency was envisioned by 1997, to be followed by a joint budget and constitution afterwards. However, the nations would keep their own flags and continue to be sovereign states. ==Image management==

Within the campaign council, Malashenko was tasked with managing television advertising and enhancing the president's image. The campaign made use of a number of catch-phrases, including "chose or lose" and "vote with your heart". Personal health of Yeltsin At 65 years old, Malashenko commissioned Video International, the same firm that supplied NTV with most of its advertising and television programming, to produce television sports, posters and leaflets for the campaign. The networks marginalized all of Yeltsin's opponents aside from Zyuganov, helping to create the perception that there were only two viable candidates. This allowed Yeltsin to pose as the lesser-evil. Near the end of the election, however, the networks began also providing coverage to the candidacy of Lebed, Additionally, Yeltsin managed to enlist Russia's emerging business elite in his campaign, including those who ran media corporations. This included Vladimir Gusinsky, owner of Most Bank, Independent Television and NTV. NTV which had, prior to the campaign, been critical towards Yeltsin's actions in Chechnya, changed the tone of their coverage. Igor Malashenko, Gusinsky's appointed head of NTV, even joined the Yeltsin campaign and led its media relations in a rather visible conflict-of-interest. In return, Chubais allowed well-connected Russian business leaders to acquire majority stakes in some of Russia's most valuable state-owned assets. Led by the efforts of Mikhail Lesin, the media painted a picture of a fateful choice for Russia, between Yeltsin and a "return to totalitarianism." The oligarchs even played up the threat of civil war if a Communist were elected president. While the anti-Communist pro-Yeltsin media bias certainly contributed to Yeltsin's victory, it was not the sole factor. In only the past few years, Russia had seen election results where the prevailing party had won despite facing strong media bias against them, like Zyuganov did in 1996. For instance, a similarly anti-Communist media bias in the run-up to the 1995 parliamentary elections had failed to prevent a Communist victory. Advertising Early advertising for the campaign sought to portray Yeltsin as a "president for all". Early billboards of the campaign included slogans such as "Yeltsin is our president" and "Yeltsin is president of all Russia". One particularly American-style campaign tactic that Yeltsin adopted was the use of direct mail letters. Television commercials Before the election, it was originally predicted that Yeltsin's television advertisements would likely resemble those that had been run by Our Home Is Russia in the week prior to the 1995 legislative elections. One such advertisement that had been run by Our Home Is Russia in 1995 featured a man on the street interview of voters, with respondents either replying Our Home Is Russia or the Communist Party. Those supporting the Communist Party were shown to be far more slovenly than those supporting Our Home Is Russia. This particular ad had conveyed an image of a close two-party race (in spite of reality being that Russia's political landscape was then a multi-party system) in order to urge voter turnout. This type of advertisement was seen as having the advantage of scaring voters into supporting Yeltsin as the lesser-evil, and encouraging turnout by portraying a razor-thin race. However, it was also seen as having the disadvantage of reminding the voters that they could vote for Zyuganov if they wished to see Yeltsin removed from office, essentially providing free advertising to the Zyuganov campaign. Yeltsin's television campaign mainly focused on repairing his own image, rather than issuing attack ads on Zyuganov. The challenge his campaign faced was that, due to Yeltsin's negative ratings and overexposure on television, it was believed he could not effectively deliver his campaign pitch himself. Instead, the pitch would need to be delivered indirectly. This meant that advertisements would not feature Yeltsin himself. A barrage of advertisements were released which featured working-class Russians, veterans, and elderly people providing testimonials in support of Yeltsin's leadership. The groups that were portrayed in these ads were demographics which typically voted for the Communist Party. Therefore, these ads aimed these testimonials towards peeling-away voters from demographics that typically leaned communist. Yeltsin's television advertising campaign avoided addressing difficult issues, such as the faltering economy. Mikhail Margelov, the head of Video International, said, Russian law prevented candidates from running advertisements before 15 March 1996. However, despite this regulation, the Yeltsin campaign began broadcasting a set of campaign commercials under the guise of "public service announcements" earlier than was permitted. The Russian airwaves were flooded on Victory Day with videos in which World War II veterans recalled their service and hinted at an ominous future under communist leadership. In one such video, a veteran remarked, "I just want my children and grandchildren to finally savor the fruits of the victory we fought for." ==Finances==

Election laws specified that campaigns could spend up to $2.9 million. Additionally, Yeltsin's government found it necessary to force the Central Bank to provide it an extra $1 billion in order to begin to deliver on his campaign promises before the day of the election Oligarchs and businesses provided the campaign an amount that was estimated to be between $100 million and $500 million. Beginning in 1995, Yeltsin's government began to use a loans for shares scheme in privatizing state-owned shares in companies. The scheme was structured in a manner that made Yeltsin's victory a strong interest of the investors involved. The two-stage program was structured so that the loans would be made before the election, but the auction of the shares could only take place beginning after the election, making it of financial concern for them that Yeltsin would win the election. Low-cost bonds scheme David E. Hoffman of The Washington Post reported that, during the election effort, Russian oligarchs profited from special deals involving low-cost government bonds. This, consequentially, sweetened the business community's support of Yeltsin's reelection effort. ==Campaign organizations==

Central campaign Oleg Soskovets served as the campaign's original chairman. When it was first launched, the campaign's structure consisted solely of a campaign management team led by Soskovets. The management team had set-up shop at the campaign's headquarters on the ninth level of the President-Hotel in Moscow. Dyachenko used her phone very frequently to remain in constant contact with both her father and with members of the campaign operations. Among those advising the campaign was Tim Bell, a British political strategist that had helped shape the public-image of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. The three American consultants were hired in February 1996 by Soskovets, who hired them through a San Francisco firm with connections in Moscow. They were reportedly paid $250,000 for their consultation. Formally, their role was as advisors to the Yeltsin family. Despite the fact that it was not unusual, Yeltsin's team did not want to risk allowing Zyuganov to exploit the presence of foreign consults in the Yeltsin campaign as a means to lodge xenophobia-laden attacks on Yeltsin. They thereafter convened the ODOPP's founding congress on April 6. The founding conference made official the ODOPP as an organization. It was immediately the most prominent organized movement supporting Yeltsin's candidacy. The organization drew membership from a vast array of more than 250 preexisting organization, including political parties, unions, civic groups and social organization. Among the groups were Reform's New Course, Our Home – Russia, Alexander Yakovlev's Russian Party of Social Democracy, Lev Ponomaryov's Democratic Russia and Arkady Volsky's Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs. The organization was led by Filatov along with Ilyushin. They located the organization's headquarters on the tenth floor of the President Hotel, just above Yeltsin central campaign's offices. They hired dozens of campaign managers from various political parties to help run the organization. These included former Press Minister Sergei Gryzonov, Presidential Chief of Staff Nikolai Yegorov, and President of the "Politika" Foundation Vyacheslav Nikonov. People's House A sub-organization of ODOPP was named "People's House". This organization forged connections with citizen groups and was the unofficial disburser of campaign funds. This was also directly overseen by Filatov. Key members of ODOPP leadership • Nikolai Filatov (co-head of ODOPP; in charge of PR and People's House) • Viktor Illyushin (co-head of ODOPP; national campaign organizer) • Nikolai Yegorov (in charge of regional work) • Vyacheslav Nikonov (in charge pre-election analysis) Moscow campaign organization A separate campaign organization existed in Moscow, dedicated to rallying votes in the nation's capital, which was a rare bastion of strong support for Yeltsin. This component of the campaign was established early on. On 22 January 1996, it was reported that Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov had set aside his disagreements with Yeltsin to join his campaign. Luzhkov would be tasked with helping deliver Yeltsin votes in Moscow. Relations between organizations With the exception of Moscow, it was not clarified what organizations were to be the campaign's primary regional representative. Consequentially, four different organizations acted under the separate assumptions that their regional offices were the primary regional representatives of the campaign. In each region, the formal national campaign organization (led by Yarov) would appoint its own representative. The ODOPP would appoint their own separate representative as well. Our Home – Russia, despite being a member of ODOPP, would also appoint representatives of their own. A fourth organization, named NarodnyiDom, would also appoint their own representative. In some locations the regional representatives of these organizations worked together, but in other locations there was no coordination between them. While confusing, having multiple separate organizations also gave significant flexibility to the national campaign. In regions that had strong local parties and civic organizations, the campaign headquarters would often treat the ODOPP as their main regional representative. Therefore, the campaign would benefit from the work of the existing grassroots organizations that composed the ODOPP. However, in regions with weaker nongovernmental organizations, the campaign headquarters would often treat the official national campaign organization, headed by Yarov, as their main regional representative. This allowed them to avoid being "held hostage" to the demands of grassroots organizations that had little or no local influence. ==Outside groups==

While many outside groups supporting Yeltsin officially coordinated with the campaign through the ODOPP, a number outside organizations functioned independently of the campaign. NarodnyiDom Narodny Dom (; ) was an outside organization supporting Yeltsin's campaign. The official claim was that the nationwide organization provided nongovernmental consultive social services to citizens and that its chapters served a social club for residents with free coffee and occasional entertainment. In actuality, campaign money was funneled through the organization to eschew detection. Vote or lose Sergey Lisovsky organized the vote or lose campaign. Vote or lose was a $10 million series of television programs and rock concerts in the style of Rock the Vote. It was a get out the vote campaign aimed at mobilizing the youth vote in support of Yeltsin. ==See also==