Word: yeltsin
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Unfortunately for Yeltsin, his most important military adventure, the war in Chechnya, has been a disaster, and it is not viewed as a heroic defense of the Fatherland. At this point, the best the campaign can hope to do is neutralize the issue. "We'll settle for appearing serious about reaching an accommodation," says Satarov. "We want the country to understand this is not the kind of illness that can be treated quickly, but the President must be seen to be working the problem vigorously." It is all part of the larger theme, "Yeltsin is trying." Last week he ordered...
...seems to have included killing the charismatic rebel leader, Jokhar Dudayev, a feat that was accomplished on April 21 when Russian electronic-warfare experts reportedly zeroed in on Dudayev's satellite phone and called in air strikes. Satarov won't directly confirm that the killing was timed to aid Yeltsin's campaign, but he gleefully acknowledges that "it wins votes for us." He also admits the Yeltsin campaign high command "discussed all this in advance" and knew when the killing would be attempted. He does, however, lament that "we haven't turned Dudayev's death to our complete advantage...
...reach the second round, and to win, Yeltsin must unite the democratic opposition to Zyuganov, or at least dull its threat to his own candidacy. One often hears of an imminent deal in which Yeltsin's leading non-Communist opponents, Grigori Yavlinsky and Alexander Lebed, will drop their campaigns. Last week, though, Yeltsin and Yavlinsky had a public spat as talks about joining forces hit a bump. "He wants too much," said Yeltsin, at first referring to Yavlinsky's demands that he fire much of his Cabinet, but later the President decided he could "accept" many of them...
...Yeltsin's aides have floated polls showing him far ahead of those men, but not far enough to forestall the possibility of Zyuganov's winning a majority in the first round. "None of those polls are accurate," concedes a Yeltsin adviser. "We have put them out to influence Yavlinsky and Lebed. They may still decide to continue their own campaigns, but we're confident now that at least they won't combine into a third-force coalition that could knock the President out of the box in the June 16 first round of voting...
...says a Westerner who has been offering advice to the Yeltsin campaign, "this election will come down to a race between someone people hate and someone they fear." That means "never failing to remind them of what they stand to lose. Since Yeltsin can't win on his record, he must turn the question into what kind of future Russians want. There have been about 20 focus groups, and some of the polling is quite sophisticated," the adviser continues. "As in America, the battle is for the center. In Russia that's about 20% of the vote. They...