Yeltsin Momentum Grows For Runoff

Everything seemed to go right Wednesday for Boris N. Yeltsin’s reelection campaign.

Another of his presidential rivals pledged his support, a third appeared on the verge of joining the bandwagon, and Yeltsin’s Communist adversaries acquiesced to holding the runoff on a favorable midweek date. Pending the expected approval of the Central Election Committee, Yeltsin appears set to face off against Communist Gennady A. Zyuganov on Wednesday, July 3.

Hoping to capitalize on the growing momentum from his first-place finish in Sunday’s preliminary voting and his alliance on Tuesday with the popular Gen. Alexander Lebed, Yeltsin had been pressing to hold the runoff as early as legally possible. But that would have meant scheduling the poll for June 30, another Sunday, when a significant part of his urban electorate is away from their home polling stations, digging in the gardens of their country dachas.

The alternative was to hold the runoff on a weekday, but Russian law requires that elections be held on a “nonworking day.” The solution? Declare July 3 a holiday this year.