ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, July 4, 1996 TAG: 9607050069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
DATELINE: MOSCOW
SOURCE: From Cox News Service, The Associated Press and The New York Times
NOTE: Lede
President Boris Yeltsin swept toward an overwhelming victory and second term Thursday as Russian voters decisively rejected his Communist opponent's call to revive the Soviet Union and its rigid controls.
From the Urals to the Pacific, millions of Russians voted a resounding ``no'' to Communist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov. With 66.3 percent of the votes counted, the Central Election Commission said Yeltsin was leading Zyuganov by 54.5 percent to 39.4 percent.
Just two weeks ago, in a first round that provided neither man with enough support to claim the presidency, Yeltsin edged Zyuganov by 3 percent of the votes.
It was a remarkable triumph for the 65-year-old Yeltsin. Despite concerns about his competence and his wobbly health, he stormed back on the campaign trail. Eight months ago, his popularity ratings had plummeted to 6 percent.
About 5 percent of voters rejected both candidates this time. Turnout was estimated at about 67 percent.
``There was nothing good under the Communists,'' said Svetlana Belova, a 58-year-old archivist as she stepped out of a polling station in Podolsk, a down-at-the-heels factory town outside Moscow. ``We don't want repression, we don't want to live like a herd.''
Few elections, certainly none in Russia, have provided a sharper choice to a more divided nation. Yeltsin, however flawed and inconsistent, embodied the painful economic reforms he introduced when he came to power in 1991.
Zyuganov, 52, the former Communist apparatchik who took a humiliated and detested party and made it the strongest political organization in the nation, promised the return of a great Russia to millions who had been defeated and impoverished by the new one.
``Nobody will lose today and nobody will win,'' said Zyuganov, who has for the past 10 days sounded more like the powerful opposition leader he intends to become than a man planning to occupy the presidency. ``In the current conditions, Russia itself will lose if our course continues. But it cannot continue, even if everyone wanted it to.''
Zyuganov ducked out of Russia's Parliament building through a back door without a word early today as grave-faced aides admitted defeat but vowed a comeback.
Yeltsin, whose intense spree of campaigning stopped completely in the past two weeks, won with the powerful help of an early opponent, the outspoken nationalist Alexander Lebed, who was named immediately after the first round of voting to the newly created and immensely influential post of Yeltsin's national security czar.
Exit polls conducted for The New York Times showed that the overwhelming majority of the 15 million Russians who supported the retired general in the first round voted for Yeltsin this time.
The vote was the first time in 1,000 years that a fully sovereign Russia has directly elected its leader.
Uncertainty about Yeltsin's health intensified Wednesday when he canceled plans for his traditional splashy appearance at a mobbed Moscow polling station, reportedly because of a bout of angina heart pains,. He settled instead for solitary voting at a nearly deserted polling place near his country dacha.
Yeltsin was hospitalized twice last year for heart troubles.
He is likely to face enormous problems in a second term.
Victory gives Yeltsin a mandate to press ahead with privatization, liberalizing land laws, opening Russia's markets and strengthening democratic institutions and freedoms. He will be under pressure to fight crime and corruption, as well as improve living standards and increase the paychecks of millions who live in poverty as a result of his reforms.
Russia's election law timetable calls for the victor to be inaugurated 30 days after the election results are certified by the Central Elections Commission - or by mid-August.
If Yeltsin dies or becomes incapacitated, Russia's 3-year-old constitution provides an uncertain road map for determining the presidential succession.
The constitution says that if the president resigns or suffers ``sustained inability due to health,'' his powers are ``terminated.'' Limited presidential powers are then automatically conferred on the appointed prime minister who must arrange a new presidential election within three months.
But the constitution also mandates that any new president must designate a prime minister within two weeks of inauguration and submit the candidacy to the State Duma, the lower house of Parliament, for ratification. There is no assurance the Communist-dominated Duma will re-confirm Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, Yeltsin's choice. What would happen if Yeltsin died after the Duma rejected his candidate has not been clarified.
LENGTH: Medium: 93 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. 1. Boris Yeltsin casts his ballot Wednesday in aby CNBnearly deserted polling place near his country dacha. His failure to
vote in Moscow fueled worries
about his health. 2. (headshot) Zyuganov. KEYWORDS: 3DA