From his single-digit popularity in January, Yeltsin rebounded to a plurality of the votes in June and a second-round majority in July. In Aleksandr Oslon’s first systematic poll of the electorate on March 1, 13 percent of Russians intending to vote in the first round preferred Yeltsin and 19 percent Zyuganov. Over the course of March and April, Yeltsin’s anticipated vote share doubled while Zyuganov’s only edged up. The first Oslon poll to show Yeltsin ahead of Zyuganov, by 23 percent to 22 percent, was on April 13, but they were tied on April 20 and again on May 4. On May 11 Yeltsin nosed ahead by 4 points, by 28 percent to 24 percent, and he never looked back after that. By June 11, 36 percent of citizens intended to vote for him and Zyuganov’s expected share had dipped to 18 percent.72 The spread narrowed some by election day, but any way you look at it was a blockbuster recovery. And it was achieved in all demographic subgroups, be they by age, community size and location, gender, or social class.73
One device whereby Yeltsin could overcome his initial deficit in public opinion was to employ incumbency to bolster his image, shape the campaign agenda, and offer amends for the deficiencies of the previous five years. Even before declaring his candidacy, he issued the first of a string of edicts directing material assistance to target groups. On January 25 he decreed a 50 percent increase in payments to recipients of old-age, survivor, and invalid pensions above the minimum pension. Another decree raised grants for students in universities and institutes by 20 percent. On February 1 he ordered stricter schedules for payment of wages to public-sector workers, including the military and police. Orders to clear up arrears in the nonstate sector were given the next week.
The foreign-policy realm offered opportunities for reputation building. Bill Clinton had agreed in 1995 to hold off on NATO enlargement until after the election, responding to Yeltsin’s plea that “my position heading into 1996 is not exactly brilliant.”74 Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany visited Yeltsin on February 20, four days after his statement of candidacy, and pronounced him “the best president for Russia.” Kohl, it is claimed, offered Yeltsin political asylum in Germany should he lose the election, a suggestion Yeltsin found insulting.75 In March the IMF unveiled a $10.2 billion loan to the Russian government, the second-largest it had ever made. On April 2 Yeltsin signed an agreement with President Aleksandr Lukashenko of Belarus to create a “community” of the post-Soviet neighbors. The document opened, he said, “a qualitatively new stage in the history of our two brotherly peoples.” National television broadcast the Kremlin event live. On April 20 the G-7 leaders were in town for a joint meeting with Russia, chaired by Yeltsin, on nuclear security. It was done, according to President Clinton’s deputy secretary of state, Strobe Talbott, “for no other purpose than to give Yeltsin a pre-election boost.” A meeting at Spaso House with opposition candidates was on Clinton’s itinerary. “It’s okay to shake hands with Zyuganov, Bill,” Yeltsin said, “but don’t kiss him.”76 Summiteers Clinton, Jacques Chirac of France, and Ryutaro Hashimoto of Japan stayed on an extra day for bilateral talks and photo ops. Several days later Yeltsin was off to China for a state visit. On May 16 UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali helpfully paid his respects in Moscow, and on May 17 a summit of CIS leaders did the same. James D. Wolfensohn of the World Bank stopped by the Kremlin on May 23 to announce a $500 million project for the coal industry. “The timing of the loan is purely coincidental,” he said with a straight face. “But I was happy to do it in support of the government’s reform efforts.”77
A security issue of domestic scope where again incumbency could be applied was the quagmire in Chechnya. With one eye on the opinion polls, Yeltsin on March 31 announced a presidential “peace initiative” designed by his adviser Emil Pain, still claiming there could be no direct negotiations with the separatist president, Djokhar Dudayev. The killing of Dudayev on April 21 (he was hit by a Russian missile while talking on a satellite phone to a member of the State Duma) removed that obstacle, and Yeltsin signaled he was willing to meet the new Chechen leadership. On May 27 a deputation of five fighters, flown to Moscow with their bodyguards in a presidential aircraft, was ushered into a Kremlin office. Swiss diplomat Tim Guldimann of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe attended to help mediate. Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, the leader of the team—a former poet and children’s author, he was attired in green battle fatigues and a papakha, the Chechens’ tall, flat-topped lambskin hat—argued with Yeltsin about seating order, with Yeltsin insisting he be at the head of the table. Yandarbiyev said he might have to pull out of the talks. Yeltsin first told the guards to seal the doors, then asked Guldimann to take his place and sat down across from the Chechen. Yeltsin next sought to gain the upper hand by acting the part of the masterful host. “As an experienced administrator, he knew that in such cases it is best to obtain a psychological advantage over the opposing side. The quickest way to get it is to find a pretense for an earboxing. ‘I do not understand,’ he said in an ice-cold voice. ‘Nobody has ever had the nerve to be late for a meeting with me. You got here late. I could have scrapped our meeting if I felt like it.’ Yandarbiyev shook and made apologies.”78 After the conclusion of their conversation, Chernomyrdin stepped in to work out an agreement with Yandarbiyev on a truce in the war, effective midnight May 31, to be followed by an exchange of prisoners and negotiations for a peace settlement. Off-camera, Yeltsin growled that if the Chechens did not honor their commitments, “We know how to find everyone who has signed this document.”79
The next day Yeltsin flew to Grozny, pushing aside a warning by officers from the security services, whom he called cowards, that Shamil Basayev’s hawkish group was going to assassinate him by shooting down the presidential helicopter with a U.S.-made Stinger missile. To preempt objections from Naina, he told her he was going to spend the day in the Kremlin. He was accompanied by Governor Boris Nemtsov of Nizhnii Novgorod, who a few months before had presented him with a million signatures from the Volga area protesting the war.80 Yeltsin signed two ancillary decrees in the republic, one of them on the steel frame of an armored personnel carrier. Every minute of his six hours there was mined for visuals and sound bites for the final weeks of the election campaign. Aleksandr Oslon’s interviewers found in early June that two-thirds of the electorate approved of Yeltsin’s peace initiative.81