TITLE : THE RUSSIAN ELECTORATE FROM 1991 TO 199 6

AUTHORS: MICHAEL MYAGKOV, University of Orego nPETER ORDESHOOK, California Institute of TechnologyALEXANDER SOBYANIN, Carnegie Institute, Mosco w

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1 The work leading to this report was supported in part by contract funds provided by the Nationa lCouncil for Soviet and East European Research, made available by the U. S. Department of State under TitleVIII (the Soviet-Eastern European Research and Training Act of 1983, as amended) . The analysis andinterpretations contained in the report are those ofthe author(s) .

CONTENTS

Abstract 1

Introduction 2

History, Data and Methods 6

Results through December 1995 1 11991 to April 1993 12

April 1993 to December 1993 12December 1993 to December 1995 14

Trends from 1991 to 1995 and Aggregation Error 1 7

The 1996 Presidential Elections 1 9

References 22

Endnotes 22

Tables 24

THE RUSSIAN ELECTORATE FROM 1991 TO 1996 1

MIKHAIL MYAGKOV PETER ORDESHOOK ALEXANDER SOBYANI N

Abstract

Insofar as they served as a prelude to Russia's 19% presidential election, the results of

Russia's 1993 and 1995 parliamentary elections prompted much speculation about th e

stability of the Russian electorate and the viability of Russia's democratic institutions . The

concern was that electoral trends from 1991 through December 1995 signaled a shift in atti-

tudes away from the euphoria of the late 1980's and early 1990's that jeopardized Yeltsin' s

prospects for electoral success in 1996 and for democrats thereafter . Those concerns remain

even after Yeltsin's victory, since for many commentators that victory relied on an unhol y

alliance with General Alexander Lebed . This electoral sequence, including the referenda i n

1993, raises a great many questions . Could Yeltsin have won without Lebed's explici t

support? What was the source of the Communist vote in 1993 and 1995, and why did th e

trend of increasing support appear to stall in 1996? A variety of answers have been offere d

for these and other questions, but most interpretations of each election, journalistic o r

otherwise, focus on aggregate national or regional election returns . Here, using election

returns aggregated only up to the level of individual rayons, we reexamine voting trend s

using data from all of Russia's elections, beginning with the 1991 presidential contes t

through the second round of presidential balloting in July 1996 . Conducting our analysis s o

that we can also trace fluctuations in turnout, our analysis paints a remarkably consisten t

picture of an electorate that has four basic parts : a hard-and-fast opposition that changes littl e

over time; a part that moves from supporting reform (by voting for Yeltsin in 1991), t o

opposing it in 1995 and 1996 after first becoming indifferent to all candidates and abstainin g

in 1993 ; a part that supports reform in 1991 but does not return to the polls until 1996, an d

a reform core that divides itself among a plethora of candidates and parties in bot h

parliamentary elections. Although our analysis does not entirely escape some of the limi-

tations of aggregate analysis, we do reject the idea that Russian voters are unlike voter s

elsewhere or that they are an unstable lot that moves easily between reform and anti-refor m

positions .

1This Report is an update, to include analysis of the 1996 Presidention elections, of an earlier Report by the sam eauthors titled The Russian Electorate from 1991 to 1995, distributed by the Council on May 20 . 1996 . (NCSEERNote .)

1

Introductio n

The results of Russia's December 1993 parliamentary election, judged by most observers as a n

upset victory for the ultra-nationalist party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky . and of the December 199 5

contest in which Communists gained the upper hand in the State Duma . prompted a good deal o f

speculation about the stability of the Russian electorate, its commitment to reform, and the viability

of Russia's infant democracy . Such concerns were only natural, since it seemed inconceivable tha t

four years or so of declining economic output and life expectancy, rising crime, and a civil wa r

would leave people as hospitable to reform as they appeared to be in 1991 when Boris Yeltsin firs t

ascended to the presidency. With an economy that even Yeltsin's strongest supporters could not sa y

was doing much more that experiencing a painful ascent and that left much of the population im-

poverished, optimism about Yeltsin's chances for reelection seemed slim indeed .

That Yeltsin did win a second-ballot victory over his communist challenger in July 199 6

occasions several questions . Were the voting patterns of the earlier parliamentary elections anythin g

more than normal fluctuations occasioned by a confused party system and an electorate befuddled b y

campaign rhetoric? Is there, in fact, any evidence of a significant increase in the `conservatism' o f

the Russian electorate? To what extent was Yeltsin's victory dependent on General Lebed's support ?

Were Yeltsin's campaign advisors correct in believing that any significant decrease in turnout coul d

only aid his communist challenger? Could either Zhirinovsky or Yavlinski have materially affecte d

the outcome by withdrawing from the contest?

To the questions we might pose about the 1996 presidential contest we can add others tha t

pertain to earlier elections . Did reformers damage their electoral prospects more than Communists

by failing to unify under the banner of a single candidate in 1995? Of that part of the electorate tha t

stayed the course of reform through December 1993 (by voting either for, say, Gaidar or Yavlinski) ,

what percentage changed their opinions and voted communist in 1995? Who benefited most from

Zhirinovsky's declining support? Did Yeltsin's `party of power,' Our Home Is Russia. succeed i n

attracting voters from parties that might be classified as centrist or did it secure its eleven percent o f

the vote in 1995 only at the expense of parties that championed reform in 1993 ?

We admit that answers to such questions are, in principle at least, best learned from publi c

opinion polls and in-depth surveys of people's attitudes and perceptions . But even though polling i s

becoming a more accurate research and campaign tool in Russia, the usual problems associated wit h

this methodology -- sampling error, respondents unwilling to admit they didn't vote or that the y

voted for a looser, and an electorate uncertain of its preferences -- continue to be exacerbated ther e

by the inaccessibility of significant parts of the electorate, the non-existence of panel survey s

extending across multiple elections, the uncertainties inherent in an unstable multi-party system, an d

respondents who often seem more inclined to answer "don't know" than to give any other response .

Unsurprisingly, then, most analyses of electoral trends as well as nearly all interpretations of events

are based on official and unofficial election returns and, with respect to the parliamentary contests .

on the share of Duma seats won by one party's list or another . However, with but a few exception s

(see Clem and Craumer 1993, 1995), these analyses, especially journalistic accounts, are based o n

returns aggregated at the national or regional levels . Consider, for instance, McFaul's (1996 )

assessment of electoral trends through the December 1995 parliamentary elections in which he

concludes that although there are no radical shifts from left to right or vise-versa within th e

electorate, Russian voters had become increasingly and dangerously polarized between reform an d

anti-reform positions . In fact, McFaul's analysis goes deeper than this, and is better summarized b y

seven more specific hypotheses :

H1: " despite the presence of 43 parties [in December 1995] . . . Russian party politics is stil l

essentially bipolar" (p. 94) .

H2: "there has been little change in the balance of support between [reform and anti-reform ]

camps" (p . 94) .

H3: "the 1995 results do not signal a radical shift away from Zhirinovsky-style `nationalism' an d

a strong move toward `communism" (p . 94) .

H4: "many centrist voters from 1993 voted for the opposition in 1995 . . . [but] "the core

opposition parties from 1993 (Communists, LDPR, and Agrarians) did not benefit from thi s

centrist migration . . . `new' votes for the opposition parties went to . . . radical communists

[Anpilov] and the new nationalist parties like Alexandr Lebed's CRC, Alexandr Rutskoi' s

Derzhava, and Power to the People" (p . 95) .

H5: "the opposition received a big boost from the return of the three million radical communis t

voters who had mostly boycotted the 1993 elections . . . [and] voted primarily for Anpilov' s

Working Russia" (p . 95) .

H6: The success of Our Home Is Russia "came at the expense of [Russia's Choice]" (p . 98) .

H7: "Party proliferation within the reformist camp . . .dramatically weakened the representation of

reformists within the Duma " (p. 98) .

These hypotheses are not an unreasonable interpretation of the 1995 election . However, the proble m

with relying on national returns is that we are in effect attempting to estimate a large number o f

parameters (vote changes among parties and candidates) from a single observation -- the change in

the national aggregate vote . There is, then, an inherent mathematical indeterminacy in the result tha t

admits of other equally plausible interpretations . This problem persists, moreover, with regiona l

data. Such data provides us with 88 observations (excluding Chechnya), but if we suppose that ther e

are 15 `parties' in 1993 (the 13 parties on the ballot plus those who voted against all and those who

did not vote in 1993 but did in 1995) and 44 in 1995 (including those who voted against all), and i f

3

we want to estimate how a party's support in 1993 is allocated across the 44 parties in 1995, then w e

must estimate 660 parameters . We might reasonably reduce this number by lumping ideologicall y

similar parties together so as to produce only, say, 7 or so categories in 1993 (Russia's Choice ,

Yabloko, LDPR, Communists, Nonvoters, Against All, Others) and 13 in 1995 (Russia 's Choice ,

Our Home Is Russia, Yabloko. Other Democrats, Lebed, Shakrai, Women of Russia, LDPR ,

Derzhava . Communists and Agrarians, Working Russia, Against All, and Others) . But we still have

more parameters (91) than observations . This is not to say that McFaul's scenario or those offered

by other analysts are incorrect, or that such aggregate analysis cannot discriminate between plausibl e

alternatives . But there is something to be gained by looking at less aggregated data .

Because of the careful reasoning on which they are based, parts of our analysis consist of a

reassessment of McFaul's hypotheses . But here we use data aggregated only to the level of individua l

rayons drawn from all Russian elections since 1991 . 1 Since we are thereby able to operate with a s

many as approximately 2,000 observations per election, we can reduce considerably the number o f

logically admissible scenarios . Rayon-level data also allows us to avoid other methodologica l

problems encountered when relying on data aggregated to some higher level . Partially in recognitio n

of the indetermanicies inherent in national or regional aggregations, many interpretations of officia l

returns rely on broad classifications of parties or candidates, usually into reform, anti-reform, an d

centrist blocks . Unfortunately, many Russian parties and candidates do not come with ready-mad e

labels, and the details of any such classification can be manipulated to admit a variety of alternativ e

conclusions . For example, how do we classify Women of Russia in 1993 and 1995? If we look at th e

legislative voting records of Duma deputies elected under their list and classify the party as centrist ,

we still do not know if this is the view voters held of them. Should we classify Shakrai's Party o f

Unity and Accord as reformist or centrist? Although Shakrai himself is associated with reform ,

several deputies elected under his party's label in 1993 ran unsuccessfully on Rybkin's stillborn party

list in 1995, which was originally intended to appeal to right-of-center voters . Although we might

agree that Our Home Is Russia belongs in the same category as Russia's Choice since each, in thei r

time, drew largely upon Yeltsin's presidential resources, is one party more centrist than the other ?

What do we do with the LDPR? Is it anti-reform or should we, on the basis of Zhirinovsky' s

legislative record of compromise, place it in its own category -- pro-reform but anti-government ?

And what of Lebed in 1995? Is he merely a `nationalist' or would it be more correct to label him a

more traditional reformist, albeit one who must learn democracy's rules?

Analyzing data that is aggregated only up to the level of individual rayons also allows us to

focus on another important matter, the ebb and flow of nonvoters . Briefly, we know that turnout and

the percentage of invalid ballots vary greatly from one election to the next : Officially, turnout

declined steadily from 1991 to December 1993 (75 .4 percent in March 1991, 74.7 percent in June

1991, 64.3 percent in April 1993, and 54 .8 percent in December 1993) but rose sharply again i n

4

December 1995 to 63 .2 percent and rose again in June of 1996 (to 69 .8 percent in the first round o f

balloting and 68 .9 percent in the second round) . Similarly, the percentage of the electorate casting

invalid or blank ballots when voting for party lists rose to 7 .62 percent in December 1993, but de-

clined to an historically more normal level (less than two percent) in 1995 and 1996 . The key

question here, then, is : Who cast invalid ballots in 1993, who lost votes as turnout declined, an d

who gained them in 1995 and 1996 when turnout reversed its trend ?

Using more disaggregated data than was available to earlier analysts, imposing no specific

classification of parties, and accommodating changes in turnout, this essay reconsiders McFaul' s

hypotheses and the description of the Russian electorate he offers up to 1995, as well as a n

assessment of voting patterns between 1991 and 1996 and between the two rounds of presidentia l

balloting in 1996. Insofar as voting in 1995 is concerned, we sustain the first hypothesis concernin g

the stability of that electorate and conclude that if there is any instability it lies in two places : in the

vote Zhirinovsky received in 1993, a significant share of which supported reformist positions in 199 1

and April 1993, and which (in accordance with hypothesis H4) moved to support communist partie s

in 1995 ; and in the changing patterns of non-voting and invalid ballots . Although the data supports

Hypothesis H5 that Anpilov's party gained from increased turnout in 1995, it also reveals that the

Communist Party was the biggest net beneficiary . And although we agree in part with hypothesis H6

that many of the lost votes of Russia's Choice went to Our Home Is Russia and, in accordance wit h

H7, to other unsuccessful reformist parties, Our Home Is Russia gained as well from increased

turnout, although not as much as the Communists . Trends in turnout also cause us to questio n

hypothesis H2, in that between 1991 and December 1993, much of the votes lost to nonvoting cam e

from reformist positions . The most curious and, perhaps, suspicious finding (at least with respect to

allegations of fraud in December 1993) is that, rather than being spread uniformly across party lists ,

virtually all voters who cast invalid ballots in 1993 voted in 1995 for the Communist Party, the

LDPR, and Our Home Is Russia . With respect to the 1996 Presidential contest, we find, amon g

other things, that none of Lebed's support came from those who supported the Communist Party i n

1995 or Ryzhkov in 1991, but instead came from voters who had earlier spread their support widel y

across Zhirinovsky, other nationalists, reformers, and a variety of small parties . Communists held

firm, whereas half of Zhirinovsky's 1995 voters defected to Zyuganov and Lebed . New voters (thos e

who failed to vote in 1995) supported Yeltsin over Zyuganov two-to-one, and, statistically speaking ,

no significant number of them voted for any other candidate . Insofar as the second round of ballotin g

is concerned, Yeltsin's alliance with Lebed was effective in that two thirds of Lebed's first round

voters switched to Yeltsin . Indeed, by our estimates, Yeltsin gained approximately the sam e

proportion of Lebed's vote as he gained from Yavlinski's, which, given the relative magnitude o f

Lebed's support, means that Yeltsin gained twice as many votes from Lebed as from Yavlinski .

5

In reaching these conclusions, this paper is organized as follows : Section 2 gives a brief history

of the elections that concern us, describes our data, and discusses our methodology . Section 3

discusses our primary results for three pairs of elections : June 1991 (the first presidential contest )

versus the April 1993 referendum, April 1993 versus the December 1993 parliamentary election, an d

December 1993 versus December 1995 . Section 4 considers some non-adjacent pairs of elections - -

the flow of votes between 1991 and December 1993 and between 1991 and December 1995 . Section

5 concludes with an analysis of both rounds of the 1996 presidential election .

History, Data, and Methods

Before describing our data it is useful to first summarize the basic changes that occurred acros s

the elections that concern us -- the June 1991 presidential election, the April 1993 referendum, th e

December 1993 parliamentary election and constitutional referendum, the December 199 5

parliamentary election, and both rounds of the 1996 presidential contest . Briefly, the June 199 1

election was the first popular balloting for president in Russian history, at which time the uniqu e

personality associated with reform and opposition to the existing regime was Boris Yeltsin, the n

Speaker of the Russian Congress of People's Deputies . His opposite number was Nikolai Ryzhkov ,

the former USSR prime minister, who, as Communist Party nominee, was widely viewed as a

representative of the status quo . Zhirinovsky, although positioning himself as an anti-wester n

ultra-nationalist and arguably fronted by reactionary forces in Moscow, was not presumed to b e

opposed to reform or portrayed as a stand in for any status quo . The remaining candidates wer e

General Albert Makashov, USSR Minister of the Interior and future KGB director Vladimir Bakatin ,

and the communist governor of Kemerovo oblast, Aman Tuleev . Despite Bakatin's subsequent

attempt to liberalize the KGB, we put all three of these candidates into the anti-reformist camp, or a t

least the camp opposed to Yeltsin's widely publicized opposition to the existing regime . Table 1

(page 24) gives our results and, with 45.6 million voters supporting Yeltsin, establishes the hig h

water mark of his support, and, presumably, of enthusiasm for democratic market reform .

The April 1993 referendum was called jointly by the President and the Congress of People' s

Deputies as part of their ongoing power struggle . Voters were asked four questions, two of whic h

explicitly concerned confidence in Yeltsin and his economic policy, and the third and fourt h

respectively asking about the advisability of holding early elections for a new President an d

Congress . Contrasting the outcome of the referendum (see Table 1), note first the sharp drop i n

turnout, from 74.7 percent to 64 .2 percent . Second, although a clear majority answers `yes' to the

first question on the ballot -- the question most clearly directed at gauging confidence in Yeltsin - -

the absolute number of Yeltsin supporters declines from 45 .6 million in 1991 fo 40.4 million in

1993 . Thus we can ask: did Yeltsin's missing' 5 .2 million voters defect to other, explicitly anti -

reformist positions, or did they merely stay home and contribute to a growing pool of non-voters ?

6

The third measure of the electorate's mood occurred in December 1993 . This election included a

referendum on a new constitution as well as the choice of deputies to Russia's lower and uppe r

legislative chambers, the State Duma and the Federation Council . But because Yeltsin was not alone

in urging voters to approve the constitution and because most candidates for the Council ran without

party labels, perhaps the most interpretable assessment of voter preferences occurred with respect t o

the party-list voting to fill seats in the new State Duma. Table 1 summarizes the election outcome

with respect to the thirteen parties on the ballot as well as the number of votes cast against al l

parties, the number of invalid ballots, turnout, and the `for' and `against' vote on the constitution .

Notice first that turnout continues its decline, from 64 .3 percent in April to 54 .8 percent . Second,

even if we classify only the Communist, Agrarian, and Zhirinovsky parties as explicitl y

`anti-Yeltsin,' Yeltsin's support, like turnout, declines as well -- from 40 .4 million voters in April t o

34.1 million in December . However, confounding any simple assessment of who gained what fro m

where is the fact that the number of voters who voted against Yeltsin in April and in support of th e

old Congress (the estimated 21 .2 million who voted No on the first question and No on the fourth )

far exceeds the number who supported the Communist or Agrarian parties (11 .0 million) in

December. Finally, we should also take note of the sharp increase in the number of invalid ballots - -

from 1 .5 million to 4 .4 million . Since turnout is declining as well, the question naturally arises abou t

the political sympathies of these ostensibly incompetent or confused voters .

Russia's December 1995 parliamentary election offered voters a choice of forty three parties ,

and, with a significant cluster of ostensibly pro and anti-reform parties garnering votes in the 3 to 5

percent range, only four parties surpassed the five percent threshold and won seats on the party-lis t

half of the contest (see Table 1) . 2 The most notable `success' was scored by the Communist party ,

which more than doubled the vote it and its fellow traveler, the Agrarians, received in 1993 . In

contrast. Russia's Choice virtually disappeared from view and Zhirinovsky lost half of his support .

But aside from these well publicized outcomes, we can find other patterns that warrant attention .

First, turnout increases substantially, from 54 .8 percent to 64 .4 percent, while the share of invali d

ballots decreases to `more normal' levels -- to 1 .3 million ballots from 4 .4 million in 1993 . Second ,

although a new `reform' or pro-government party appeared on the scene, Our Home Is Russia, and

was credited with taking votes away from Russia's Choice, its vote share cannot account fully for th e

losses incurred by that party and by those others we might classify as centrist in 1993, such a s

Women of Russia, Travkin's Democratic Russia, and Shakrai's Party of Unity and Accord .

The last and perhaps most significant election considered here is the 1996 presidential election ,

which required two rounds of balloting -- the first on June 16 and the second on July 3 . Ten

candidates appeared on the ballot in June, and although Yeltsin won a plurality with 35 .3 percent of

the vote, the election law required a runoff between him and his communist opponent, Gennad y

Zyuganov, who received 32 .0 percent of the first-ballot vote . Three questions dominated al l

7

speculation about the second round of balloting . First, would the relatively high turnout on the firs t

round (69.8 percent) be sustained in the second? Second, would Yavlinski's supporters (7 .34

percent of those voting in the first round) stay home or vote for Yeltsin? And, most importantly ,

would Lebed's voters (14 .52 percent of those voting) abide by his endorsement and support Yeltsin ?

Yeltsin, of course, secured a clear second-round majority (53 .8 percent versus Zyuganov's 40 . 3

percent) --- a majority that was attributed largely to the joining of Lebed and Yavlinski voters with

Yeltsin's first-round base of support .

Finding meaningful trends in this electoral sequence is not difficult, but as we note earlier, th e

trends we find will depend on which parties we label pro-reform, anti-reform, and centrist . Thus, to

better assess the mood of the electorate, we look instead at each party or candidate's source o f

support . Saying, for instance, that Russians are more conservative today than two or four years ag o

or that significant numbers are tiring of reform requires finding a measurable part of the electorat e

moving across the ideological spectrum from left to right . Similarly, the argument that Zhirinovsky' s

vote in 1993 was an anti-reform protest vote that Yeltsin is unlikely to capture in the June 1996

presidential election requires explicit confirmation of the hypothesis that a predominant share of th e

votes he lost in 1995 went to, say, the Communists . However, mere `declassification' of partie s

cannot resolve matters ; as we also indicate earlier, we must disaggregate our data . Here, then, we

consider data aggregated only to the level of individual rayons .

Briefly, the Russian Federation consists of 89 semi-autonomous regions (oblasts, krays ,

republics, autonomous regions, and the federal cities of Moscow and St . Petersburg), and eac h

region, in turn, consists of a number of "rayons" . The average region has a population of abou t

two million (exceptions are the city of Moscow and some of the sparsely populated autonomou s

regions), whereas the average rayon has a population of less than a hundred thousand . Typically ,

each region's capital is a large city with a population that ranges between several hundred thousand s

to several million and may itself consist of several rayons . The administrative capital of each rayon

(excepting those that are part of a regional capital) is generally a small town with a populatio n

ranging from several thousand to several hundred thousand . There are, then, several alternativ e

levels of aggregation of the data -- rayon, region, Duma district (after December 1993) or the whol e

country -- but until December 1995, the only official published results were aggregated at th e

national or regional levels, whereas the Central Election Commission, following the December 199 5

vote, published data at the rayon level . However, through a variety of sources we have be able t o

augment the rayon-level returns provided by the Central Election Commission for 1995 and 199 6

with rayon-level returns for 1991 and both elections in 1993 . Although not wholly comprehensive ,

this data appears nevertheless to be representative of the whole in that no national category of retur n

varies from official numbers by more than two percent . Hence, it is this data plus the officia l

rayon-level returns for 1995 and 1996 that is the basis of this study .

8

The data set for the June 1991 presidential elections is . with the exception of 1995 and 1996, th e

most comprehensive one in our study . It consists of 2551 rayon-level observations, covers 87 of 8 9

regions, and accounts for 105 .7 million of the 107 million people who formed the eligible electorate .

The two missing regions are the autonomous republics located on the far north of Russia . The data

set includes voting totals for all of the six candidates as well as turnout rates, and the number o f

votes against all of the candidates and the number of invalid and unused ballots . Data for the Apri l

1993 referendum take the form of 2125 observations covering 68 of 89 regions and about 91 . 1

million eligible voters (about 90 percent of the total) . This data set includes vote counts for all bu t

one oblast and two of the republics . The December 1993 election is the most difficult to document ,

since the Central Election Commission to this day refuses to publish official rayon-level returns .

Inexplicably, the bottom line, as asserted by the Commission's chair, is that such data does not exist .

Our data set here, then, comes from a variety of different sources and includes 1298 rayon-leve l

observations for voting on the constitution and 1167 rayon-level observations for voting o n

party-lists . The constitutional data set covers 41 regions and about 52 .9 million eligible voters ,

whereas the party-list data set includes 36 regions and about 48 .2 million eligible voters . Most of the

missing regions are the autonomous republics, the southern oblasts and the cities of Moscow and St .

Petersburg. Despite these gaps, this data set appears to be fairly representative of the country as a

whole -- the share of votes given to the constitution and to the several major parties does not diffe r

from the officially reported national average by more than two percent . Finally, the December 199 5

election returns as well as both rounds of the 1996 presidential election have been published by th e

Central Election Commission, and include all rayons and regions . 3 These official numbers are the

basis of our analysis of the 1995 and 1996 contests .

Turning now to our method of analysis, suppose by way of example that two parties, A and B,

compete against each other in two consecutive elections, e = 1 and 2. Let the percentage of the

eligible electorate voting for the two parties in each election be denoted by xe°' and xeB and let xe°

denote the share of the electorate that failed to vote . Suppose now that party A lost votes, that B

gained votes, and that the number of nonvoters decreased so that B's gain actually exceeds A's loss .

Since there are only two parties, it is not too difficult to interpret these numbers, but even still suc h

aggregate numbers allow for an infinity of possibilities when it comes to describing the flows o f

voters and nonvoters . For example, B's increase might have come directly from A's voters in th e

previous election, as well as from the ranks of nonvoters ; alternatively, B's new support might have

come exclusively from old nonvoters, with a larger share of A's lost vote going into the ranks o f

nonvoters . Although both possibilities yield the same outcome, they present different interpretation s

of the outcome . If, in the first instance, the espoused ideologies of A and B differ radically, we

would infer a somewhat unstable electorate in which voters switch from one extreme to the other ,

9

whereas in the second case we see fewer voters jumping across the ideological spectrum and more o f

them, when switching loyalties, first becoming indifferent between the parties .

To see, then, how we might disentangle these possibilities using aggregate data, let us focus firs t

on A's supporters in the second election and, to render the parameters we must estimate identifiable ,

let us assume that any increased turnout comes exclusively from the ranks of previous nonvoters .

What we want to learn, now, is the percentage of voters who supported A in both elections, th e

percentage if any who voted for party B in the first election but switched to A in the second, and ,

assuming that turnout increased from one election to the next, the percentage who abstained fro m

voting in the first election but voted for A in the second . Formally, then, we are interested in

estimating the coefficients aAA, aBA, and a°A of the following equation :

x2A = aAAX, A + aBAx,B + aoA(x,°

x2 )

Notice that this expression subtracts the share of the electorate that abstains in both elections .

Since our example assumes that turnout increased, and since to render our model identifiable w e

must assume that anyone who voted in the first election voted as well in the second, we treat ne w

voters as a separate party -- as a part of the electorate that `voted' not to vote in the first election .

Thus, we can let X2° = x,° - x,° denote the `votes' for this 'party' .'

Unfortunately, no econometric method guarantees unbiased estimates of the variables in thi s

model (King 1996) . The primary difficulty is aggregation error, which arises whenever people in on e

observation act differently than people in some other . Nevertheless, we can estimate the elasticitie s

of the coefficients if we accept the same assumptions that are implicit in any attempt, journalistic o r

otherwise, to infer substantive meaning from aggregate election returns . Specifically, we mus t

assume that the value of coefficients do not vary across observations (or equivalently, across an y

subset of observations), that our independent variables do not correlate significantly, and tha t

residual errors are normally distributed with same means and variances . Notice now that sinc e

x,A + x,B + X,° = 100

or equivalently, since

= 100 - x,A - x,

we can write that expression as

X2 A = K + ax,A + 3X, B .

Thus, the elasticities of x, A , x,B , and X,°, respectively, are aA A + K, aBA + K, and K, where K =

100ao A•s

B

10

Suppose now that we have estimates of our coefficients and we ask : what inferences can w e

make about individual decisions . Naturally, if the model's assumptions are not satisfied -- i f

aggregation error biases or otherwise renders our estimates meaningless -- the answer is `nothing' . 6

But there are several checks on the consistency of those estimates . First, the estimated coefficient s

should not sum to a number significantly different from 1 .0, since presumably supporters of A, B,

and nonvoters exhaust the potential electorate (excluding `hardcore' nonvoters) . Second, no

individual coefficient should be significantly less than zero or greater and 1 . Finally, we need to

check the assumption that coefficients do not vary in any consistent way from one subsample t o

another. The particular danger here is aggregation error -- estimates, for instance, that are, say ,

significant within subpopulations but insignificant when the entire data set is considered . The usual

check is to divide our sample into various subpopulations that are most likely to occasion different

values for the coefficients . In the case of Russia, the most likely candidate is urban versus rura l

sub-populations, since there is considerable evidence that urban voters, owing to differences i n

information, education, and economic opportunities, respond differently to the parties than do rura l

voters (Hough et al 1996, Clem and Craumer 1993, 1995, and Slider et al 1994) . Hence, in the

next-to-last section of this essay, before we consider the 1996 presidential election, we divide ou r

data into `urban' and `rural' subpopulations and rerun several regressions to see if our conclusion s

about vote changes between 1991 and 1995 are affected significantly by aggregation problems . '

To see now how we can interpret our estimates, suppose for purposes of an example, that w e

estimate aAA + K at 0 .7, in which case we would infer that if party A's support increases in th e

first election by one percent, then A's support in the second election should increase by .7 percent .

An equivalent interpretation is that 70 percent of those who voted for A in the first election voted fo r

A in the second . The caution that needs to be applied here about either interpretation, though, is that

if A's vote in the first election averaged, say, 40 percent, it is not necessarily the case that supporter s

in a district that gave him a mere 10 percent acted the same as supporters in one that gave hi m

precisely 40 percent or the same as voters in a district that gave him 90 percent . Our model is linear

and, especially when treating variables constrained to values between 0 and 100 percent, it may no t

be true that extreme cases are like average ones .

Results through December 1995

Since we want to learn how voters who supported, say, reform, act subsequently, our dependent

variables pertain to choices made in the second (most recent) election in the pair, and independen t

variables concern choices made in the first election . However, since statistical estimates for `minor '

parties are in general unreliable, we focus here on the `major' issues, such as support and oppositio n

to reform, and primary candidates or parties . Thus, we do not attempt to estimate the sources o f

1 1

support of a party that gathers a mere one or two percent of the vote ; in these instances we grou p

minor parties together according to a priori judgments about their ideological persuasions .

1991 to April 1993 : To assess the flow of votes between June 1991and April 1993, we firs t

divide the set of 1991 presidential candidates into four groups : Yeltsin . Ryzhkov, Zhirinovsky, an d

`others' . Our objective here is to measure the extent to which Yeltsin's 1991 voters supported him i n

April 1993 by answering Yes to the referendum's first question, as well as how supporters of the

other candidates voted in April . Also, we want to see who was hurt most be the decline in turnou t

between these two elections . Thus, an additional dependent variable is the percentage of the

electorate choosing not to vote in each rayon in April 1993 minus the percentage who did not vote i n

1991 .

The data in Table 2 (page 25) presents the results of our regressions in two forms .' Looking a t

the column under `Yeltsin', the first number tells us that of those who voted for Yeltsin in 1991, 7 3

percent voted Yes on the first referendum question . 8 percent voted No, and 18 percent failed to

vote. The second number, in parentheses . tells us that of those who voted Yes in our data, fully fou r

fifths came from people who voted for Yeltsin in 1991 . In contrast, 87 percent of Ryzhkov' s

supporters in 1991 voted No and accounted for nearly one half the No vote in April . Zhirinovsky' s

voters and those who voted for other candidates, on the other hand, tended to split nearly evenl y

between voting Yes and No, with an edge given to an anti-Yeltsin vote of No . There are few

surprises here, but we do have our first indication (but not our last) that we cannot easil y

characterize Zhirinovsky's base of support vis-a-vis their attitudes towards reform . 9

Of the things Table 2 reveals, two warrant emphasis . First, note the stability of that part of th e

electorate polarized between pro and anti-Yeltsin positions . Our estimates suggest that few member s

of the electorate (less than six percent of those who voted in 1991) switched from a pro-Yeltsin vot e

in 1991 to a No vote in 1993 or from a pro-regime (Ryzhkov) vote in 1991 to a Yes vote in 1993 .

In this respect at least, the bipolarity McFaul infers with respect to the electorate between Decembe r

1993 and 1995 (his hypothesis H1) is not peculiar to those parliamentary contests ; a core of

polarized voters appear to exist as early as 1991 . If any fundamental shift occurred, it is within the

pro-Yeltsin camp as nearly one sixth of Yeltsin's earlier support disappeared into the ranks of non -

voters . If people were less enthusiastic about reform in April 1993, their moderated enthusiasm did

not lead them to switch sides but led instead to growing indifference between both polar positions .

Conversely, few of Rhyzkov or Zhirinovsky's voters in 1991 stayed home in April 1993 . As a

consequence, Yeltsin's support in 1991 of nearly 58 percent fades in April 1993 to a bare majority .

April 1993 to December 1993 : Turning next to the Russian electorate between April and

December 1993 -- to the elections that bracket Yeltsin's coup against the old Congress -- we now le t

responses to the April referendum's first question correspond to our independent variables and fo r

dependent variables we consider both the constitutional referendum and voting on the party lis t

1 2

elections to the State Duma . 10 Because turnout continued its decline we identify "nonvoters i n

December who voted in April" as a separate dependent variable, and since December also witnesse d

a sharp increase in the numbers of invalid ballots, we also create the category "voters who cas t

valid ballots in April but invalid ones in December" as an additional dependent variable to b e

explored.

Table 3 (page 26) summarizes our regressions and reveals several patterns that correspond t o

what we already know about the December election . With respect to the constitutional referendum ,

notice first that although few (4 percent) of Yeltsin's April supporters appear to have opposed thi s

constitution, the share of those who voted in April and supported reform in December by voting fo r

the constitution (or for parties we might reasonably classify as reformist or centrist) continues t o

decline as additional Yes voters from April enter the ranks of nonvoters . By our estimate, fully on e

quarter of those who voted Yes in April failed to appear at the polls in December . In contrast ,

although nearly one fifth of those voting No in April voted for the constitution, little (2 percent) o f

that opposition to Yeltsin chose not to vote in December . Thus, the progressive 'bleeding' of

reformers into the ranks of nonvoters, which began in April, continues and perhaps even accelerate s

in December. Second, despite the events of September and October, the bipolar stability that w e

noted with respect to Table 2, and that corresponds to McFaul's first hypothesis, is maintained : Of

those supporting the constitution, 85 percent supported Yeltsin in April whereas among those votin g

against the constitution, fully 92 percent opposed Yeltsin in April .

Looking now at voting for the party lists, the division of April Yes and No voters offers fe w

surprises : votes for Russia's Choice and Yabloko come exclusively from those who voted Yes i n

April whereas votes for Communist and Agrarian parties come exclusively from those who vote d

No. Women of Russia and Travkin's DPR, true perhaps to the 'centrist' label often given them ,

derive their support from both Yes and No voters, although since there are more Yes than N o

voters, their support comes predominantly from Yes voters . Shakrai's list and those of the parties

that failed to surpass the 5 percent threshold secure votes primarily from Yes voters . Finally, just as

Zhirinovsky's 1991 voters divided approximately 1 :2 against Yeltsin in April, support for the LDP R

in December comes from both pro and anti-Yeltsin camps in approximately the same ratio . Once

again, then, we cannot put the LDPR into the same opposition and anti-reform category as we migh t

place Communists and Agrarians .

Perhaps the most interesting question about December concerns Zhirinovsky's vote . The

numbers in Table 3 suggest the following : if we assume that Zhirinovsky succeeded in keeping hi s

1991 voters, then approximately one quarter (3 .12 percent of those who voted in April) of that

additional support came from people who supported Yeltsin in April and three quarters (8 .98

percent) came from No voters . This estimate, though, leaves unanswered the subsidiary question a s

to why Yes voters who defected from Yeltsin defected only to Zhirinovsky (as opposed t o

1 3

Communists or Agrarians) . Myagkov and Sobyanin's (1995) answer is that this apparent defectio n

(as well as an equal number from the No category) represents election fraud -- ballots added to th e

total in order to increase turnout and render the constitutional referendum legitimate . Indeed, if we

assume that 3 .12 percent of those who voted Yes in April but for Zhirinovsky in December as wel l

as 3 .12 percent who voted No in April but for Zhirinovsky as well are falsified ballots, we come t o

an estimate of fraud's magnitude (6 .24 percent times an April turnout of 64 .2 million = 4 million

ballots falsified for Zhirinovsky) that is in the ball park of Sobyanin's (1995) initial estimate of 6 . 3

million .

Admittedly, such speculations take us beyond the confines of our analysis, and the overal l

picture painted by Table 3 is of an electorate that continues to melt away from pro-reform position s

into the ranks of nonvoters and the absence of crossovers between reform and anti-refor m

(communist) camps . Moreover, notice that although Travkin's DPR and Women of Russia won vote s

from both Yes and No April voters, the plurality of Yes over No means that both parties secured a

majority of their vote from Yes voters. Thus, if their Yes voters are like the rest, the presence o f

Women of Russia and DPR on the ballot further reduced the relative support recorded by Russia' s

Choice and Yabloko. On the other hand, had Zhirinovsky not been in the race, and if his Yes an d

No voters were polarized between pro and anti-reform positions like all the rest, elimination of the

LDPR from the contest would have contributed more to Communist and Agrarian party totals than t o

any other .

December 1993 to December 1995 : Analyzing the December 1995 parliamentary election poses

some new methodological problems that derive not only from the great number of parties competin g

then (43), but also from the large number (13) competing in December 1993 . The specific problem

is that our estimates become increasing unreliable to the extent that our independent variables (the

support given to each party) are linearly dependent . In our case the set of all such variables, taken

together, are dependent in that they must sum to 100 percent . However, recall that we delete on e

variable from each regression and allow its coefficient to be determined by the constant term . If this

variable accounts for a `significant' part of the eligible electorate and if it varies `sufficiently' in th e

data, then multicolinearity is manageable . But if there are a many independent variables and if no

one of them accounts for a significant share of the vote or has support that fails to vary significantly

across observations, multicolinearity re-emerges . Our approach here, then, is to first group th e

parties that competed in 1993 into four categories : the Communist Party plus Agrarians ,

Zhirinovsky's LDPR, centrist and reform (Travkin's DPR, Women of Russia, Russia's Choice ,

Yabloko, Shakrai's Unity and Accord, etc .), invalid ballots, and new voters . After ascertaining

which groups contributed support to each significant party in 1995, we subdivide those groups an d

estimate each party's contribution within the group, but only after we re-cluster the groups that ar e

not indicated as providing significant support by the first regression .

14

Table 4 (page 27) gives the results of our first pass at the data (these estimates are preliminary ,

and we do not offer any estimate in parentheses of the division of the full electorate across part y

lists) . Notice the considerable increase in the number of negative coefficients -- a sure sign that ou r

positive estimates are biased upwards . Nevertheless, we do see approximately the same pattern w e

saw earlier with respect to the bipolarity of the electorate . For example, of those that voted fo r

`Democrats, center parties, and against all' in 1993, none are indicated as voting for the LDPR ,

communists, Agrarians, Anpilov or Rutskoi . Instead, their votes are spread out nearly uniforml y

across the remaining parties, including various clusters of parties that individually received only a

small fraction of the vote . Conversely, those who voted for the communists or Agrarians in 1993

voted much the same way in 1995 . But notice here that this communist vote, although dissipate d

somewhat across five parties, concentrates itself in the Communist Party . Although the communist

vote is dissipated somewhat by the presence of Anpilov and Rutskoi on the ballot, it is far less

uniformly spread than is the `democratic and centrist' vote . McFaul's seventh hypothesis about the

damage done to democrats by the proliferation of parties . then, is largely borne out by this

preliminary analysis. Insofar as Zhirinovsky's lost support is concerned, Table 4 suggests that muc h

of his support went to the Communist Party, with smaller shares going to Rutskoi, Anpilov, Lebed

and Govorukin . Finally, the primary beneficiaries of increased turnout are Yabloko, Derzhava, an d

the communists . Thus, Table 4 at least, fails to support McFaul's fifth hypothesis about the source of

votes for Anpilov's Working Russia .

Finally, consider the column `invalid ballots', which attempts to estimate the beneficiaries of the

relative decline in the number of invalid ballots . Owing to the considerable number of statisticall y

significant negative estimates, our positive estimates cannot be regarded as reliable ; nevertheless, the

suggestion here is that the primary beneficiaries of this decline were `other democrats', Women o f

Russia, the LDPR, the Communist Party, Agrarians, and Anpilov . This is indeed a curious mix, bu t

before we attempt any interpretation of things, let us turn to the refinement of our analysis in whic h

we try to dissect further the basis of each party's support .

Table 5 (page 28) presents our results, except that instead of presenting a multitude of column s

with statistically insignificant estimates, the last column reports only those estimates that ar e

significant for the parties we label `Democrats and center' in Table 4 (as before, the numbers i n

parenthesis denote the overall percentage of the vote given to parties from the 1993 electorate) .

Looking first at the first nine rows of this table, notice that Russia's Choice receives only about one

quarter of its 1993 vote ; in conformity with McFaul's sixth and seventh hypotheses, the remainder i s

spread across a broad mix of parties, including Our Home Is Russia, the party lists of S . Federov ,

Popov, Lebed, and Govorukin, and our aggregation of fifteen insignificant parties (row 9) .

Yavlinski's support, in contrast, is remarkably stable : Yabloko retains all of its 1993 vote, and pick s

up additional small shares from Gaidar ( .72 percent), Shakrai's Unity and Accord ( .86 percent), and

1 5

from new voters (1 .68 percent) . The fifteen small parties in row 9 get only .56 of the vote fro m

Yabloko, whereas the party lists associated with Lebed, Govorukin, S . Federov, and Popov ge t

none. The picture here, then, is of one party, Russia's Choice, that hemorrhaged in nearly every

direction, and of another, Yabloko, that maintained its base of support but failed to attract support

from anywhere else .

Turning now to the opposite end of the ideological spectrum, to rows 10 through 14 of Table 5 ,

notice first that no coefficient in the last column under `democratic + centrist' is significant o r

positive ; the bipolarity of the electorate is sustained. But if there is a parallel to Russia's Choice i n

the `opposition' camp, it is the LDPR, whose 1993 vote dissipates across the LDPR, Rutskoi and

company, the Communist Party, and Anpilov . Indeed, contrary to hypotheses H3 and H5, nearly

half of Anpilov's vote comes from the LDPR, as well as nearly half of Rutskoi's and the Communis t

Party's . In contrast, the only significant loss experienced by the Communist Party is to Rutskoi' s

list .

Now consider the columns denoted `invalid ballots' and `new voters' . The primary beneficiary

of increased turnout is the Communist Party, which secures nearly one third of all new voters, an d

overall, opposition parties who secure nearly 60 percent of all such votes. However, although twelv e

percent of this increase is `wasted' on Anpilov and Rutskoi et al's lists owing to their failure t o

qualify for seats in the Duma, democratic and centrist parties waste even more -- all but the 1 2

percent of increased turnout that goes to Yabloko and the 5 percent that goes to Our Home I s

Russia . Thus, fractionalization among democrats and the general edge given to opposition partie s

among new voters combine to give communists a 2-to-1 edge over democrats among new voter s

whose votes counted . Perhaps more importantly, though, recall that as turnout declined betwee n

1991 and December 1993, the lost votes came almost exclusively from the reformist camp -- fro m

voters who voted for Yeltsin in 1991 and who voted Yes on the April referendum's first question .

But the votes that `reappear' in 1995 do not return to the reform camp ; instead, a clear majority

goes to opposition parties . The evidence, then, is consistent with the hypothesis that a significant part

of the electorate -- over 8 percent of those voting in 1995 -- moved from supporting reform in 199 1

to opposing it in 1995, but only after it passes through a period of indifference to all parties an d

positions . The analysis of invalid ballots, the third column in Table 5, is interesting in and of itself .

The difficulty here is that we are dealing with a relatively small fraction of the electorate, less than 5

percent, which renders our estimates less reliable than usual . This fact is borne out by th e

proliferation of negative estimates in the corresponding column of Table 5 . Nevertheless, accepting

that our positive estimates are in all likelihood biased upwards, notice that the primary beneficiary o f

the decline in invalid ballots is the communist party, with the LDPR and Our Home Is Russia a clos e

second and third, respectively . This is curious, since normally we would expect invalid ballots to b e

spread uniformly across the parties . It is as if only the `party of power' and the primary oppositio n

1 6

parties can attract previously `stupid' voters . We might, of course, attempt to fashion a variety of

stories to explain these estimates, but here we note simply that if the sharp rise in invalid ballots i n

1993 is somehow a byproduct of election fraud, our estimates here suggest that that fraud was not a

uniform phenomena but concentrated somehow in rayons that gave the LDPR, the Communist Party ,

and any party associated with the Kremlin special support .

Finally, Table 5 allows us to reconsider McFaul's fourth hypothesis about the vanishing center in

Russian politics. If we take the center in 1993 to be Shakrai's Unity and Accord, Travkin's DPR ,

Women of Russia, and those parties that failed to qualify for seats, we cannot confirm H4 . Our

estimates suggest that the DPR's vote, for instance, dissipates across Our Home Is Russia, the list s

offered by S . Federov, Popov, Lebed and Govorukin, plus other democratic parties such as thos e

headed by Pamfivoliva and Boris Federov . Women of Russia appear to have given their lost votes

primarily to Pamfivoliva, B . Federov and a collection of 15 small parties, whereas Shakrai lost vote s

primarily to Rybkin, with smaller shares given to Our Home Is Russia, Yabloko, and a variety o f

insignificant parties . Indeed. regardless of how we re-constitute our categories, we find no evidenc e

that the votes lost by any of these parties went to any opposition party .

In summary, of McFaul's seven hypotheses, four are confirmed but three are not . H1, H2, H6 ,

and H7 are strongly supported ; but we find little evidence consistent with H3, H4, and H5 . It is not

so much that we see a migration of centrist voters into the opposition camp or a bevy of new voter s

supporting extremist lists such as Anpilov's . Instead, if we see change it is primarily in the form of a

segment of the electorate -- perhaps as much as 10 percent -- making the transition from supportin g

reform to indifference to voting with the opposition .

Trends from 1991 to 1995 and Aggregation Error

Thus far, we have examined pairs of adjacent elections through 1995, but before we consider th e

1996 presidential contest we should first check our conclusions with comparisons that trace the flo w

of votes directly from the `heyday' of reform, 1991, to December 1993 and 1995 . Looking first ,

then, at the comparison of 1991 to 1995, Table 6 (page 29) gives our results and reveals three thing s

in particular : "

First, those who voted in 1991 for Ryzhkov continue to vote against reform by supportin g

opposition parties in 1995 . Indeed, those who voted for any candidate other than Yeltsin in 199 1

vote, with but some small exceptions, for opposition lists in 1995 . Second, although Yeltsin's 199 1

voters continue, in the ratio of two-to-one, to prefer parties that are not explicitly opposed to refor m

(the parties corresponding to rows 1 through 9 in Table 6), they spread themselves nearly uniforml y

across party lists. Moreover, although Zhirinovsky's LDPR gains 7 percent of this vote, the

Communist Party gains even more, 10 percent . In a word, Yeltsin's original support has dissipate d

to nearly all points . Finally, notice that although some of Rhyzkov's voters (approximately 1 5

1 7

percent of his original vote) have entered the ranks of nonvoters, some 20 percent of Yeltsin's fa r

larger share are nonvoters in 1995 . Hence, even though turnout increased in 1995 over the levels i t

achieved in 1993, a significant part of the electorate that favored Yeltsin in 1991 continued to stay

away from the polls four years later .

Turning now to Table 7 (page 30), which compares 1991 with December 1993, we see a

somewhat clearer picture of the flow of Yeltsin's original support . In particular, notice that althoug h

the LDPR gets 10 percent of Yeltsin's original vote, the Communist and Agrarian parties, in contras t

to 1995, together get none of it! Moreover, fully 37 percent of Yeltsin's vote enters the nonvotin g

ranks whereas only 30 percent vote for Russia's Choice, Yabloko, Future of Russia or RDDR an d

another 16 percent vote for the remaining (centrist?) parties on the ballot . Insofar as the

constitutional referendum is concerned, 47 percent of Yeltsin's original supporters vote for hi s

constitution -- presumably those who voted for reform and centrist parties -- whereas 77 percent o f

those supporting Rhyzkov voted against the constitution . Interestingly, notice that, in keeping wit h

his campaign advice, Zhirinovsky's supports also give majority approval to the constitution .

Tables 6 and 7 together . then, are consistent with the view offered earlier of a `reform '

electorate that erodes into ranks of nonvoters, and reappears in 1995 as part of the support garnere d

by the opposition to Yeltsin's policies and reform . However, before we can give full confidence to

such conclusions, we must check the potential for aggregation error -- the possibility that, contrary

to our assumption that the same parameters characterize all rayons, different subpopulations ac t

differently .

As a partial check against such error, our data allow us to check for the possibility of

differentiation among urban versus rural voters . We know, of course, that such voters not onl y

confront different economic and social circumstances, but that they also vote differently, with urba n

voters being much more supportive of Yeltsin and reformist parties than rural voters (see, fo r

example, Hough et al 1996, Clem and Craumer 1993, 1995, and Slider et al 1994) and with rura l

rayons reporting much higher turnout than urban ones . The question, however, is whether, fo r

instance, rural voters who supported Yeltsin in 1991 defected in different ways subsequently than di d

voters who came from cities .

Table 8 (page 31), then, reproduces the coefficients reported in Table 6 except that each cel l

reports two coefficients -- the first for rayons with 70 percent or more urban residents and th e

second for their `non-urban' counterparts . Perhaps the two most important things revealed by thi s

table from the perspective of our earlier conclusions, is, first, that regardless of subpopulation ,

Yeltsin's 1991 vote disperses itself across the ideological spectrum whereas Ryzhkov's vote hold s

firm against reform in 1995 . Second, 20 percent or more of Yeltsin's original vote, both urban an d

rural, became nonvoters in 1995 whereas none or Ryzhkov's urban support and only 13 percent o f

his rural support failed to vote in Russia's second parliamentary election .

1 8

This is not to say that there are no differences between urban and rural voters . For example, i f

we look down Yeltsin's column in Table 8, the first coefficient is greater than the second in the firs t

nine rows, but thereafter (excepting the last row, which corresponds to turnout) the second numbe r

is greater . The implication is that in urban constituencies, the majority (but not all) of Yeltsin's vot e

moved to reformist or centrist parties, whereas in rural rayons that vote moved predominantly t o

anti-reform parties . Here, however, we can only infer general tendencies since more often than no t

the coefficient for urban and non-urban populations are not statistically significantly different -- a

fact that gives us some confidence that aggregation error does not significantly impair our previous

analysis . But we should give one note of caution with respect to Zhirinovsky's 1991 supporters . Al-

though we are concerned here with less than 8 percent of the electorate, the coefficients for thos e

voters seem especially unstable, with significant negative values appearing in three of our

regressions . A coefficient of 60 for urban rayons and -20 for non-urban ones with respect t o

nonvoters suggests the possibility of significant aggregation error in our overall estimate of th e

coefficient for Zhirinovsky with respect to this regression in Table 6 . Notice that a similar problem

exists with respect to Ryzhkov's voters and turnout -- although the difference there, 0 versus 13, i s

less pronounced than for Zhirinovsky, neither of these numbers is as great as the estimate Table 6

reports for the share of Ryzhkov voters who became nonvoters in 1995 . This disparity suggests that

the percentage given in Table 6, fifteen percent, overestimates the share of the communist vote tha t

failed to appear at the polls in 1995 . Of course, this possibility merely strengthens our conclusio n

that new nonvoters in 1993 and 1995 came predominantly from Yeltsin's original base of support .

The 1996 Presidential Electio n

Turning now to the an analysis of the 1996 presidential contest, Table 9 (page 32) allows us t o

consider first the flow of votes from 1995 to the first round of balloting in June . Notice that if we

simplify the analysis by grouping various reform parties (e .g., Our Home Is Russia, Yabloko ,

Russia's Choice), nationalists (Lebed, Anpilov, etc .), and `others', we see a picture that is not muc h

different than before . Essentially the entire 1995 communist vote supports Zyuganov in 1996, an d

although Zhirinovsky retains approximately half of his 1995 support, the rest divides between Lebe d

and Zyuganov, with Zyuganov having the edge here . Other nationalists, in contrast, move to Zyuga-

nov, suggesting that `nationalism' in December 1995 was merely support for the old regime dresse d

in campaign rhetoric . And `Democrats', as expected, give virtually all of their votes to Yeltsin an d

Yavlinski . 1 2

The more interesting numbers in Table 9 are to be found in the last two columns . Notice firs t

that those who voted for the mass of insignificant, sometimes indistinguishable or eve n

unidentifiable, parties divide largely between Yeltsin and Lebed, with Lebed having the edge here .

In fact, nearly two thirds of Lebed's support comes from this category . As opposed to the conclusio n

1 9

offered elsewhere (Boxer et al 1996) that Lebed's support came predominantly from Zhirinovsky' s

supporters, we find instead that that support came less from any candidate we might label

`reactionary' or `nationalist' and more from those who, in 1995, refused to vote for any of th e

primary parliamentary contenders . The second-round coalition of Yeltsin and Lebed, then, is less

one of `strange bedfellows', and more a natural way for Yeltsin to secure the votes of those wh o

earlier, although unwilling to vote for any of the primary `reformist' parties . had also demurre d

from voting communist or explicitly nationalist . Finally, notice that new voters split 2-to-1 fo r

Yeltsin versus Zyuganov . This is an especially interesting finding owing to the fact that turnou t

increased in 1995, but not to the level of 1991 . The suggestion here, then, is that although much o f

Yeltsin's original 1991 support melted away into the ranks of nonvoters in 1993, and although a

share of those nonvoters who returned to the polls in 1995 divided their votes among virtually al l

`competitive' party lists, those who waited until 1996 to vote again overwhelmingly chose Yeltsin .

Thus, the concerns expressed by Yeltsin's advisors that a high turnout was critical to success seem s

well supported by these numbers .

Now consider Table 10 (page 33), which contrasts the first and second rounds of th e

balloting . Briefly, there are at least three observations to be made about the numbers here . First ,

both Yeltsin and Zyuganov's first round supporters hold absolutely firm -- no one defects to anothe r

camp. Second, Zhirinovsky's voters move predominantly to Zyuganov . It appears, then, tha t

whatever support Zhirinovsky won in 1993 among voters unopposed to reform and which wer e

eventually lost to reformist candidates, were lost in 1995 . Yeltsin had little to gain from Zhirinov-

sky's supporters, and Zhirinovsky's withdrawal altogether from the presidential election before th e

first round of balloting would have helped only Zyuganov . Third, Yeltsin's ultimate victory owes

as much to his coalition with Lebed as anything else . As Table 10 shows, Lebed's vote divide s

2-to-1 in favor of Yeltsin in the second round . With approximately 16 percent of the vote (and takin g

into account those Lebed supporters who fail to vote in the second round or who vote Against All) ,

this means that Yeltsin gained about 4 percentage points over Zyuganov in the second round fro m

the Yeltsin-Lebed coalition . Even Yavlinski's voters contribute less to Yeltsin's eventual victor y

(approximately 3 percentage points over Zyuganov) . In fact, Yavlinski's supporters, are, with th e

possible exception of those who vote for `others', the most `unstable' of the lot . Although a

majority vote for Yeltsin, significant numbers switch to Zyuganov or choose Against All, an d

Against All receives more votes from Yavlinski's camp than from any other .

Yeltsin's campaign strategy, of course, had two primary components . In addition to forming th e

Yeltsin-Lebed alliance, it also sought to ensure against any precipitous decline in turnout .

Unfortunately, it is difficult to judge from our numbers what might have happened had there been a

more pronounced decline . Those numbers tell us only what happened, not what might hav e

happened . Nevertheless, notice that although most nonvoters appear under Zhirinovsky's column, th e

20

majority of them (as well as voters choosing Against All) come from elsewhere -- from candidate s

whose other supporters eventually gave an edge to Yeltsin (Lebed, Yavlinski, and `others') . If thi s

pattern would have been sustained by any additional decline in turnout, that decline would have hur t

Yeltsin more than Zyuganov .

Our final comparison, now, addresses the issue of the overall stability of the Russian

electorate, and contrasts voting in 1991 with voting in the second round of the 1996 presidentia l

contest . However, looking at Table 11 (page 34), we see that judgements about `stability' depend o n

how we look at the data . From one perspective the electorate looks remarkable stable : fully two

thirds of Yeltsin's original support vote for him again in 1996, and essentially the same percentage

of Ryzhkov's voters vote for Zyuganov five years later . On the other hand, although Yeltsin's 199 6

vote comes overwhelmingly from those who supported him in 1991, Zyuganov's support ha s

multiple sources, including those who voted for Yeltsin and Zhirinovsky . Zhirinovsky's voters, a s

usual, are the most difficult to assess, and our estimate of their flow causes us to seriousl y

underestimate Yeltsin's overall support in 1996 (see the significant negative coefficient unde r

Zhirinovsky in Table 11) . The simplest portrayal of the picture painted by these numbers, then, is o f

a significant part of the electorate committed to reform despite the wrenching changes in th e

economy and society, but also of a part willing to vote for candidates opposed to reform, or at leas t

to Yeltsin's policies . For example, Yavlinski's hard core of support, although committed to refor m

in the personage of a particular candidate (Yavlinski), found it difficult to support Yeltsin in 1996 ,

and were nearly as willing to vote for Zyuganov, for Against All, or to stay home as to vote fo r

Yeltsin in the second round (see Table 10) . That Yeltsin won in 1996 does not mean tha t

`communist' or other such candidates are inherently uncompetitive and dead in the water . A

significant share of the electorate has moved about from one candidate to another, between and

among Yeltsin, Lebed, Zhirinovsky, and other candidates and parties . It may be true that the

advantage in subsequent presidential elections lies with those who currently are part of Yeltsin' s

administration, but enough votes can be lost to the `Left' to preclude their inevitable victory ,

especially if that Left learns how to attract voters from Yeltsin's old base of support or from thos e

who returned to Yeltsin in 1996 but who also exhibit a willingness to support candidates other than a

candidate who is explicitly reformist or explicitly communist . This, of course, is as it should be in a

democracy .

2 1

References

Boxer, Vladimir, Michael McFaul, and Vasillii Ostashev . 1996 . "Elections 1993-1996 : Stable andMetastable Electorates," Moscow : Carnegie Institute working paper .

Clem, Ralph S . and Peter R . Craumer . 1993 . "The Geography of the April 25, 1993, RussianReferendum," Post-Soviet Geography, 34, 8: 481-96

Clem, Ralph S . and Peter R . Craumer . 1995 . "A Rayon-Level Analysis of the Russian Electio nand Constitutional Plebiscite of December 1993," Post Soviet Geography, 36 . 8 : 459-75

Filippov, Mikhail, and Peter Ordeshook . 1996 . "Fraud or Fiction: Who Stole What in Russia' sDecember 1993 Elections ." Working Paper, California Institute of Technology .

Hough, Jerry F., Evelyn David Heiser and Susan Goodrich Lehmann. 1996 . The 1996 RussianPresidential Election . Washington D .C. : Brookings .

King, Gary . 1996. "A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem ." Manuscript, Harvar dUniversity .

McFaul, Michael, and M . Steven Fish . 1996. "Russia Between Elections ." Journal ofDemocracy 19:90--118 .

Myagkov, Mikhail, and Alexander, Sobyanin . 1995 . "Irregularities in the 1993 Russia nElection ." Working Paper, California Institute of Technology .

Slider, Darrell, Vladimir Gimpleson and Sergi Chugrov . 1994 . "Political Tendencies in Russia' sRegions : Evidence from the 1993 Parliamentary Elections," Slavic Review, pp. 711-32 .

Endnotes

1. We appreciate that any assessment of Russian election returns, regardless of the level of aggregation, canno tdiscount the possibility that vote counts are seriously contaminated by fraud (Myagkov and Sobyanin 1995) .Russian democracy is a mere five years old, and Stalinist rules for administering elections still apply in man yregions; how else do we explain turnout rates in some conservative and remote voting districts that remai nabove 95 percent? However, it is folly to assume that those returns contain no information . Here, then, abidingby the same assumption made implicitly by those who offer their assessments of the ebb and flow of Russia ndemocracy on the basis of national or regional returns, we treat election statistics at face value .

2. Table 1 as well as our subsequent analyses of the 1995 election groups party lists as follows : the row denoted'other democrats' consists of B . Federov, Pamfivoliva, and Borovoy's lists, as well as '89', Christian Demo-crats, and FDD; the row denoted Rybkin and Shakrai (Unity and Accord) includes as well Stable Russia, Bloc kof Independents, and Transformation of the Homeland ; and the row denoted Derzhava also includes For th eHomeland and Power to the People .

3. Notice that the data from one election to the next are not strictly comparable, and that even within the De-cember 1993 election, we have data covering a slightly different set of rayons when comparing the Duma part ylist elections and the constitutional referendum . Thus, when analyzing pairs of elections, each data set must bereadjusted so that it concerns only those rayons for which we have data on both elections .

4. Notice that if aggregate turnout increases, we assume that 'newvoters' constitute a new party that 'competes' i nall rayons, which, in effect, assumes that turnout does not decrease in any rayon in the analysis . Thus, to satisfythis assumption, we must delete for the regression those rayons that run counter to this trend . Generally, thi sentails deleting fewer than 50 rayons in any one pairing of elections . The primary exception to this pattern is thecomparison of the first and second rounds of the 1996 presidential election, where approximately one sixth o fthe sample must be deleted . We report these results in Section 5, but note here that if we ignore turnout alto-gether and operate with the full sample of rayons, our conclusions about the flow of votes among candidates areunchanged .

22

5.

Notice that the usual form of a model intended to be estimated by standard econometric techniques woul dinclude an error term, usually additive and assumed to be independently and normally distributed . Here ,however, since our variables must sum to a constant, the only source of stochastic error, contrary to ou rassumption, is variation in the values of our coefficients across the data . A priori, then, we know that any erro rterm will not satisfy the usual assumptions employed to ensure unbiased estimates of coefficients . Unfortunately ,there is no way to know the direction of this bias, nor do we know of any procedures for eliminating it .However, dividing our sample into various subpopulations (see our check for aggregation error) and re-runnin gour regressions provides a partial check on the severity of the problem .

6.

For those who might want to replicate our analysis of methodology, notice that it is necessary when running aregression to delete one party, candidate, or referendum response and allow its coefficient to be estimated by th econstant term . If all possible choices (including not voting and casting an invalid ballot) are included, the vari-ables sum to 100 percent, the independent variables are linearly dependent and the resulting estimates are mean-ingless . But in deleting a variable, we must delete a `significant' one whose support does in fact vary across ob-servations, since otherwise, the remaining variables are approximately linearly dependent, and estimates ar ecorrespondingly unreliable . Some care, though, must be taken when choosing which variable to delete . If wedelete one that bears a strong negative correlation to one that remains in the sample, then some of our estimate swill be strongly biased downwards . We should note, however, that these problems do not generally arise her eunless there are a `great many' independent variables, which is to say that they tend to arise only when w eexamine the relationship between party list voting in the December 1993 and 1995 parliamentary elections an dbetween the 1995 and 1996 balloting .

7.

Aggregation error does not arise if urban voters merely have different preferences than rural ones . Rather,aggregation error can pose a problem if, for instance, urban voters disenchanted with Yeltsin or reform defec tto different parties than do rural ones .

8.

Although the issue does not arise here, to simplify subsequent tables, coefficients that are not significantl ydifferent from zero are reported as O . An appendix that gives all estimates and their associated statistics is avail -able from the authors .

9.

Since turnout is greater in 1991 than in April 1993 and since we assume, in effect, that all those who voted i n1993 voted in 1991, there is no `nonvoter' column in Table 2 -- those who failed to vote in 1991 are assume dto have not voted in 1993 . Also, turnout in a few rayons (less than 50 in any pair of elections) move in adirection opposite that of the national average and, thus, in a direction inconsistent with our assumption . Theserayons are deleted from the analysis .

10.

Since invalid ballots in April 1993 are such a small share of the electorate, we delete this column from ou rpresentation .

11.

However, to simplify presentation, we delete the column corresponding to invalid ballots or ballots cast agains tall candidates since they constitute an insignificant part of the data, less than 4 percent .

12.

Table 9 does offer one apparent anomaly -- the large share of `democratic' votes going to Zhirinovsky and th eserious overestimation of Zhirinovsky's total vote . Apparently, though, this estimate is due to multicolinearit ybetween the shares received by Zhirinovsky and Zyuganov . If we combine these two candidates into a singl ecategory, we estimate that no 'democratic' votes went to the pair.

23

Table 1 : Summary of Election Outcomes1991

April 1993

December 1993

December 1995

June 1996

July 1996

Yeltsin 57 .3%Ryzhkov 16 . 9Zhirinovsky 7 . 8Others 13 . 9Against All 1 . 9Turnout 74 . 7Yes 1 58 .7%No 1 38 . 5Turnout 64 . 2Russia's Choice 14 .3

3 . 9Our Home is Russia -

10 . 3Other Democrats -

4 . 8Rybkin, Shakrai 6 .2

1 .49RDDR 3 .8

-DPR 5 .1

-Yabloko 7 .3

7 . 0Others 4 .3

-S . Federov, G . Popov -

4 . 1Lebed, Govorukin -

5 . 4Women of Russia 7 .5

4 . 7LDPR 21 .1

11 . 4Derzhava -

4 . 9Communist 11 .5

22 . 7Working Russia -

4 . 6Agrarians 7 .4

3 . 8Against All 3 .9

2 .83Invalid 7 .6

1 .23Turnout 54 .8

63 . 2Yeltsin 35 .3

53 . 8Zyuganov 32 .0

40 . 3Lebed 14 . 5Yavlinski 7 . 3Zhirinovsky 5 . 7Others 2 . 2Against All 1 .5

4 . 8Turnout 69 .8

68 .9

24

Table 2 : Vote ChangesBetween 1991 and April 1993

Yeltsin Ryzhkov Zhirinovsky Others TotalsYes 1 (

73

7

36 30(42 .29)

(1 .15)

(2 .86) (5.27) (51 .56)

No 1 8

87

55 5 2(4 .64)

(14 .4)

(4 .37) (9.13) (32 .54)

Nonvoters 18

4

5 14(10 .4)

( .07)

( .04) (2.33) (13 .83 )

Invalid 1

2

2 3

( .058)

(0.32)

( .15) ( .48) (1 .53 )

Totals 100

100

98 99(57.91)

(16.57)

(7.78) (17 .21)

2 5

Table 3 : Vote ChangesBetween April and December . 1993

Yes

No

TotalsFor Constitution 69%

19%(41 .2)

(7 .24) (48.66 )

Against Constitution 4

78(2 .39)

(29.7) (33 .53)

Nonvoters 25

2(14 .95)

( .76) (15.71 )

Invalid ballots 6

6(3.58)

(2 .28) (6 .21 )

Russia's Choice 23

- 4(13 .7)

H1 .52) (12 .10 )

Yabloko 10

0 i(5.92)

(0) (6 .1 )

DPR 4

4(2 .32)

(1 .52) (4 .2 )

Unity and Accord 6

2(3.58)

( .76) (5.22 )

Women of Russia 6

6(3.58)

(2.28) (6 .3 )

LDPR 10

3 5(5 .98)

(13 .35) (20.08)

Communists 0

22-(0)

(8 .38) (8.91 )

Agrarians -6.0

25(-3.58)

(9 .52) (6 .20 )

Others 14

2(8 .37)

( .76) (9.13)

Totals 98/104

99/104(59.8)

(38.1)

26

Table 4 : First Analysis of December 1993-1995 Vote ChangesDemocrats .

Center .LDPR Communists

AgrariansInvalid Nonvoters Totals

Against Al lRussia's Choice 14% -6 0 -23 5 (3 .35 )

Our Home is Russia 13 0 -1 -10 3 (4 .96 )

Other Democrats 14 0 0 25 7 (8 .87 )

Rybkin . Unity & Accord 16 -6 0 0 -14 (2 .66)

Yabloko 19 -5 -3 -41 20 (6 .77 )

S . Federov . G . Popov 10 -4 -4 -14 3 (3 .92 )

Lebed. Govorukin 10 8 -6 -23 10 (5.74 )

Women of Russia 6 4 0 22 4 (4.94 )

15 Small Parties 14 1 -2 4 8 (6 .53 )

LDPR -3 33 10 43 13 (11 .6 )

Derzhava -3 15 9 0 11 (4 .9 )

Communist Party -11 5e 55 44 32 (23 .0 )

Working Russia 0 5 10 24 0 (4 .5 )

Agrarian 0 -6 34 11 -4 (3.4 )Totals 99 96 102 164 98

27

Table 5 : Vote Changes . December 1993 to 1995Russia's Choice Yabloko Others

LDPR Communists & Invalid New Voter s

Russia's Choice

25

0 0 0 -2 0 6(3 .15)

(0) (0) (0) (- .3) (0) ( .8 )

Our Home is Russia

26

0 Travkin 17 ( .7) 0 0 36 514 .5)

(0) Shakrai 25 (1 .15) (0) (0) (2 .19) ( .7 )

Yabloko 6

100 Travkin 18 ( .86) -2 -2 -19 1 2( .72)

(6 .24) (- .4) (- .3) (-1 .15) (1 .68 )

Other Democrats 28

4 Travkin 18 ( .80) 0 0 -10 3(3 .3)

( .24) WOR 19 (1 .21) ( 0 ) ( 0 ) (- .6) ( .42 )

Rybkin . Shakrai 0

0 Shakrai 67 (3 .20) 0 0 0 -1 0(0)

(0) Others 9 ( .88) (0) (0) (0) (-1 .4 )

S . Federov . G . Popov 15

0 Travkin 18 ( .8) 0 0 -11 51 .81

(0) Others 20 (1 .9) (0) (0) (- .66) ( .7 )

Lebed, Govorukin

0 Travkin 73 (3 .25) 0 0 -16 1 0(2 .04)

(0) (0) (0) (- .97) (1 .4 )

Women of Russia 0

0 WOR 56 (3 .59) 0 0 0 7(0)

(0) Others 10 ( .98) ( 0 ) ( 0 ) ( 0 ) ( .98 )

15 Small Parties 14

9 Shakrai 10 ( .47) 0 0 0 9(1 .68)

( .56) WOR 26 (1) (0) (0) (0) (1 .3 )Others 14 (1 .3 )

LDPR -> 34 10 43 1 4(- .86) (6 .8) (1 .5) (2 .6) (1 .96 )

Derzhava (- .3 .6) 11 25 .6 5 1 0(-1 .54) (2 .2) (2 .26) ( .3) (1 .6 )

Communist -11 58 56 50 3 2(-4 .73) (11 .6) (8 .4) (3 .0) (4 .48 )

Working Russia 0 7 .3 14 24 2(0) (1 .46) ( .86) (1 .44) ( .28 )

Agrarians 0 0 59 0 0(0) (0) (5 .39) (0) (0)

28

Table 6: Vote changes from 1991 to 199 5Yeltsin Ryzhkov Zhirinovsky Others Totals

Russia's Choice 4 .6 0 - 7 .5 0(2 .55) (0) (- .62) (0) (1 .93 )

Our Home is Russia 11 -1 - 0(6 .16) ( .62) - (0) (7 .87 )

Other Democrats 5 .9 0 0 1 . 9(3 .28) (0) (0) ( .27) (3 .55 )

Rybkin, Shakrai & Others 3 .6 0 7 -2 . 7(2 .0) (0) ( .58) (-48) (2.1 )

Yabloko 10 -3 - 0(5 .56) (- .78) - (0) (5 .08 )

S . Federov . G . Popov 5 0 0 5(2 .75) (0) (0) (0 .7) (3 .45 )

Lebed, Govorukin 7 2 - 0(3 .89) (0 .58) - (0) (4 .47 )

Women of Russia 3 .4 0 6 .1 4 . 3(1 .89) (0) ( .50) ( .60) (2 .99 )

15 Small Parties 6 0 0 2(3 .36) (0) (0) ( .28) (3 .64 )

LDPR 7 6 46 1 0(3 .89) (1 .07) (3 .82) (1 .40) (10 .18)

Derzhava 3 .7 7 .4 14 -2(2 .0) (1 .32) (1 .16) (- .28) (4 .2 )

Communist 10 42 5 6 2(5 .56) (7.58) ( .4) (8 .78) (22 .32 )

Working Russia 2 5 .4 20 2(1 .1) ( .96) (1 .7) ( .3) (4 .06 )

Agrarians -2 18 8 4(-1 .1) (3 .22) ( .66) ( .56) (3 .34 )

Nonvoters 19 15 10 6(10.56) (2 .68) ( .83) (1 .08) (15 .15)

Totals 96 .2 91 .8 108 .6 92 . 5(53.45) (17 .25) (9 .03) (13 .21)

29

Table 7: Vote changes from 1991 to 199 3Yeltsin Ryzhkov Zhirinovsky

Others I

Totals

DemocratsRussia's Choice, Yabloko 30%

0

-21

1 1Future of Russia. RDDR (17.64)

(0)

(-1 .5)

(1 .5) (17 .64 )

LDPR 10

10

80

2 4(5 .8)

(1 .6)

(6 .0)

(3 .26) (28 .5 )

Communist & Agrarians 0

61

18

1 7(0)

(9 .78)

(1 .35)

(2 .31) (13 .44 )

Others 16%

12

-6

2 2(9 .4)

(192)

(-0 .45)

(2 .99) (13 .86 )

Invalid Ballots 6

9

-8

6(3 .52)

(1 .44)

(-0 .60)

(0 .81) (5 .17 )

Turnout Difference 37

2

22

1 7(21 .75)

(0 .32)

(1 .65)

(2 .31) (26 .08 )

For Constitution 47%

15

50

45(27 .6)

(2 .4)

(3 .75)

(6 .12) (39 .87 )Against Constitution 12

7 7

27

34(7.05)

(12 .35)

(2 .02)

(4 .62) (26 .04 )

Totals 99/96

94/94

85/99

97/96(58 .1/56.4)

(15.6/15 .07)

6 .45/7 .42)

(13 .18/13 .05)

30

Table 8: Vote changes from 1991 to 1995 : Urban/Non-Urban Rayon sYeltsin Ryzhkov Zhirinovsky Others

Russia's Choice 3/1 .8 0/0 -18/0 0/ 0

Our Home is Russia 11/9 .8 0/0 0/0 0/0

Other Democrats 6/3 1/0 0/3 0/1 . 6

Rybkin, Shakrai & Others 4 .5/2 .5 -6/2 21/0 -6/0

Yabloko 13/4 .8 0/0 0/0 0/1 . 8

S . Federov, G . Popov 4.8/2 0/ .4 0/ .4 7/2 . 5

Lebed . Govorukin 6.5/4 .5 3/3 3/3 0/ 1

Women of Russia 3 .5/2 .5 -2/0 17/2 .5 3/3 . 5

15 Small Parties 6.1/5 2.8/0 2.8/0 7.8/ 0

LDPR 6/8 6/7 40/48 13/8

Derzhava 3.3/5 14/5 3/16 -1/0

Communist 8/16 54/42 -47/27 62/56

Working Russia 2/3 .6 3/5 20/9 1/3 . 5

Agrarians 0/2 .4 5/18 8/2 0/8

Nonvoters 20/25 0/13 60/-20 -13/13

31

Table 9 : Vote Change Between December 1995 and First Presidential Round 199 6Communists

Zhirinovsky

Other& Agrarians

NationalistsDemocrats Others

New

Total sVoters

Yeltsin 0

0

20

71 36 6 1( .8) (23 .9) (5 .8) (4 .4) (34 .9 )

Zyuganov 99

29

57 -10 - 37(31 .4)

(3 .0) (2 .2) (-5 .0) - (2 .7) (34 .3 )

Lebed 0

19 6 8 54 0(2 .0)

( .2) (2 .7) (8.6) (13 .5 )

Yavlinski 0

I)

0 21 11 0(7 .1) (1 .8) (8 .9 )

Zhirinovsky 0 46 0 21 7 0(4 .8) (7 .1) (1 .1) (13 .0 )

Others 0 5 10 0 3 0( .5) ( .4 ) ( . 9 )

Totals (31 .7) (10 .5) (3.9) (33 .7) (16 .0) (7.2)

32

Table 10: 1996 Presidential Election, Both RoundsFirst Roun d

Yeltsin

Zyuganov

Lebed

Zhirinovsky Yavlinski

Others Totals

Yeltsin 104 0 55 11 -

58 37

(33 .8) (8.8) ( .7) (4 .4) (1 .9) (49 .6 )

Zyuganov -3 101 27 60 16 9(-1 .0) (31 .8) (4 .3) (3 .8) (1 .2) ( .5) (40 .6 )

Against All 0 -1 11 11 23 27(- .3) (1 .8) ( .7) (1 .7) (1 .4) (5 .3 )

Nonvoters -1 0 9 18 6 19(- .3) (1 .4) (1 .2) ( .5) (1 .0) (3 .7)

Totals (32 .5) (31 .5)

(16 .0)

(6 .4) (7 .5) (5 .0)

33

Table 11 : Vote Changes Between 1991 and July 199 6Yeltsin 1 Ryzhkov Zhirinovsky 1 Others

Against All I Totals 1

Yeltsin 45

17

-20 0

7 1(25 .9)

(2 .8)

(-1 .6) (1 .8)

(28 .9 )

Zyuganov 15

67

63 68

-13(8 .6)

(11 .1)

(4 .9) (10 .0) (- .3) (34 .3 )

Lebed 15

0

25 9 0(8 .6) (2 .0) (1 .3) (11 .9 )

Yavlinski 10

0 0 0(5 .8)

( .7) (6 .5 )

Zhirinovsky 3 3

19

7 1 4(1 .7) ( .5)

(1 .5) (1 .0) ( .4) (5 .1 )

Nonvoters 10 14

20 9 2 1(5 .8)

(2 .3) (1 .6) (1 .3) ( .5) (11 .5 )

Against All 2

0 0 2(1 .1) ( .3) ( . 2) (1 .6 )

Totals

(57 .5)

(16 .5)

(7 .8)

(14 .7 ) (2 .5)

34