Yeltsin Gains On Rival, Polls Show

President Boris Yeltsin may be gaining on his Communist opponent, according to new public opinion polls.

In a poll for CNN and The Moscow Times newspaper released on Wednesday, 19.1 percent of the respondents said they’d vote for Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov and 14 percent for Yeltsin.

Free market economist Grigory Yavlinsky was in third place with 6.2 percent and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky was fourth with 4.9 percent.

More than 28 percent said they hadn’t made up their minds yet.

With such a crowded field, most observers say a runoff after the June 16 election is likely.

The poll of 1,170 people in towns and rural areas nationwide had a 3-percent margin of error.

It was done by the CESSI Institute for Comparative Social Research, the only polling organization to predict Zhirinovsky’s victory in the 1993 parliamentary elections.

Although Yeltsin is behind his Communist challenger, the latest polls still represent a marked improvement in his fortunes. Just a few months ago, he was trailing most major contenders.

“At the moment, forces are being consolidated around two main rivals,” said Yuri Levada, director of the VTSIOM center, which conducted a separate poll that showed Zyuganov with a 10-percentage-point lead over Yeltsin.