Alexander Lebed presidential campaign, 1996

Alexander Lebed presidential campaign, 1996
Campaigned for Russian presidential election, 1996
Candidate Alexander Lebed
Vice-chairman of the Congress of Russian Communities
Member of the State Duma
(1995-96)
Scond-in-Command of the Russian Airborne Troops
Commander of 14th Army
(1992-1995)
Commander of the 106th Guards Airborne Division
(1988-91)
Affiliation Congress of Russian Communities
Status Nominated by KRO:
11 January 1996
Registered:
19 April 1996[1]
Lost election:
16 June 1996

The Alexander Lebed presidential campaign, 1996 was General Alexander Lebed's campaign in the 1996 Russian presidential election. Lebed ran as the nominee of the Congress of Russian Communities (KRO). Lebed ultimately placeda suprisingly strong third place in the first-round of the election, thus disqualifying him from the second-round. He endorsed Boris Yeltsin in the second-round.[2]

Background

Since he was among the military figures most popularly liked amongst the Russian public, Lebed had been speculated as a potentially strong presidential candidate since as early as 1994.[3][4][5]

In June 1995, after he had been relieved of his command of the 14th Army, Lebed resigned from the military and entered the realm of politics.[6][7] He soon joined and became vice-chairman of the Congress of Russian Communities. The party was a centrist nationalist party headed by Yury Skokov, a military industrialist, and guided by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.[6]

In September 1995 Lebed was polling as the most popularly liked politician amongst Russian citizens.[6] He particularly benefited from his perceived seperation from the political establishment, as well as the corruption associated with it.[8]

Campaign

Lebed was formally nominated by the KRO on January 11, 1996.[9]

Up until early May, Lebed entertained negotiations with Grigory Yavlinsky and Svyatoslav Fyodorov to jointly form a third force coalition.[2]

Lebed's campaign had a weak grassroots presence in many locations. For instance, in the city of Perm his campaign's field office operated out of a cubicle-sized space and was headed by a retired military major with no political experience.[10]

After reaching an informal agreement with Yeltsin in April (under which Lebed promised to endorse Yeltsin in the second round of the election), Lebed began to see positive news coverage, as well as a greater overall quantity of media coverage. This was done as part of an effort by Yeltsin's camp to promote Lebed in the hopes that he would syphon off votes from other nationalist candidates in the first-round.[2]

Positions and policies

Lebed promoted himself as an authoritative leader that would introduce law and order, tackle corruption and allow capitalism to blossom.[11][12] While he presented an authoritarian personality, he held moderate positions.[8]

Lebed pledged to end the war in Chechnya.[13]

Lebed was skeptical towards the West, particularly towards the United States.[6] He had warned that a potential central-European enlargement of NATO could be enough to warrant the start of a third world war.[6]

While he was regarded to be a pro-democracy candidate, Lebed had a problematic history in respect to human rights. He had demonsrated that he personally regarded violence to be a means of persuasion, and had acted accordingly while a general.[7] In the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Lebed was involved in military efforts to suppress ethnic unrest. This included, in the spring of 1989, an effort to quash unrest in Georgia in which more than twenty people were killed and dozens wounded when spetsnaz troops commanded by Lebed used sapper shovels and chemical weapons on crowds. In the winter of 1990, Lebed carried out orders to impose martial law in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku by using armored personnel carriers to transport troops who shot, stabbed to death, and crushed hundreds of Azerbaijanis.[6]

References

  1. ↑ "Russian Election Watch, May 9, 1996". 9 May 1996. Archived from the original on 4 January 2001. Retrieved 26 July 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 McFaul, Michael (1997). Russia's 1996 Presidential Election: The End of Polarized Politics. Stanford University in Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press.
  3. ↑ Biography of Alexander Lebed. Central Connecticut State University. Retrieved 2 September 2017.
  4. ↑ Barber, Tony (16 August 1994). Power struggle sparks unrest in Moldova. The Independent. Retrieved 2 September 2017.
  5. ↑ Specter, Michael (13 October 1996). THE WARS OF ALEKSANDR IVANOVICH LEBED. The New York Times. Retrieved 2 September 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Cohen, Ariel (September 26, 1995). "General Alexander Lebed: Russia's Rising Political Star". www.heritage.org. The Heritage Foundation. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
  7. 1 2 Hockdtader, Lee (June 25, 1996). "LEBED'S METEORIC ASCENT". www.washingtonpost.com. Washington Post. Retrieved August 25, 2018.
  8. 1 2 Obshchaya Gazetta 5/18/95
  9. ↑ "KRO OFFICIALLY NOMINATES LEBED FOR PRESIDENT". www.jamestown.org. Jamestown Foundation. January 12, 1996. Retrieved August 23, 2018. .
  10. ↑ Gordon, Michael R. (June 17, 2017). "THE RUSSIAN VOTE: THE HEARTLAND;How Yeltsin Won Over a City That Looked on Him Coldly". www.nytimes.com. The New York Times. Retrieved September 22, 2017.
  11. ↑ Smith, Kathleen E. (2002). Mythmaking in the New Russia. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
  12. ↑ The 1996 Russian presidential election / Jerry F. Hough, Evelyn Davidheiser, Susan Goodrich Lehmann. Brookings occasional papers.
  13. ↑ McFaul, Michael (October 30, 1997). "The Election of ´96". www.hoover.com. Hoover Institution. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
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