'I've come with full pockets'

Magnanimous Yeltsin pulls ahead in polls

June 7, 1996
Web posted at: 10:40 p.m. EDT (0240 GMT)

MOSCOW (CNN) -- A CNN-Moscow Times poll released Friday shows Russian president Boris Yeltsin holding a comfortable lead over his main challenger, Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov.

Some 34.5 percent of 1,067 said they favored Yeltsin in the June 16 election; just under 16 percent expressed a preference for Zyuganov. In third place was Gen. Alexander Lebed, followed by Grigory Yavlinsky and Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

More than 17 percent of those surveyed said they were undecided.

Another poll by the Nugzar Betaneli Institute shows Yeltsin and Zyuganov in a neck-and-neck race.

But Yeltsin campaign adviser Igor Malashenko said polls can be misleading, especially in Russia.

"Many people still assume that they are talking to the KGB and they are lying of course, trying to say something nice about the authority," Malashenko said.

Not willing to take any chances, Yeltsin is pulling out all the stops in this campaign.

"I've come with full pockets," a beaming Yeltsin said when he arrived in the Arctic mining city of Vorkuta on a recent campaign trip. He gave a car to a coal miner on the spot.

Yeltsin's campaign platform calls for higher wages, bigger pensions, more welfare benefits, housing loans, job subsidies, more unemployment benefits. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

But some political analysts says if Yeltsin tries to make good on everything he's promised after the June 16 election -- something few expect him to do -- it could bust the budget and derail the free-market reforms his administration has championed since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

"There's no way he can deliver on all these promises," said political analyst Michael McFaul.

Voters like Aldona believe that Yeltsin is all talk and no action. And, although this retired Russian woman promised Yeltsin to his face that she will vote for him, she later said she would do nothing of the kind.

Her voice simmering with anger and bitterness, Aldona said she hates Yeltsin and blames him for the hardships of the last four years.

She says her husband, a former miner, is dying from a lung ailment and that their pension of 15,000 rubles is just enough to buy three loaves of bread, leaving no money for medicines.

"Why would I support him?" she asks, anguish clear on her face. "I will vote ... but not for him. That was a front ... no one is going to vote for him, you will see."

Ultimately, however, it's not what people say but what they do in the polling booths next week that will determine who becomes Russia's next president.

CNN Correspondent Eileen O'Connor and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related stories:

• Yeltsin widens lead over Communist - June 1, 1996
• Russian Communist candidate tells Americans not to worry - May 23, 1996
• Can Zyuganov's populist appeal beat Yeltsin? - May 21, 1996
• Yeltsin gets boost from CIS leaders, new poll - May 17, 1996
• Ad blitz kicks off Russian campaign season - May 16, 1996

Related sites:

• Russia Today (election news)
• Russian Elections
• Maximov's election special
• Russia: Elections '95 (available in English and Russian)
• Russian Presidential Elections - 96

Related newsgroups:

• talk.politics.soviet
• soc.culture.russian
• soc.culture.russian.moderated

(Certain newsgroups may not be available on your news server)

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