President Boris Yeltsin's campaign for support, two weeks before a referendum on confidence in his presidency, kicked into high gear on Monday, but the president got bad news from the results of regional elections held over the weekend.
Yeltsin appointees were replaced with candidates opposed to his vision of reform in elections in several regions organized after the Congress of People's Deputies last month deprived the president of the right to appoint regional administration heads.
Yeltsin met Monday with leaders of student groups with a combined membership of over 2 million to woo their support by promising to sign an order increasing state education subsidies and raising student's stipends to 4, 275 rubles from 3, 000 rubles. The legal voting age in Russia is 18.
"You are being asked to choose not between the Congress and the president", he told the students in an evening appearance at the Moscow Aviation Institute. "The choice is between two strategies: will we continue to move forward, learning from the rest of the world and correcting our mistakes, or will we put ourselves in the hands of those who want to roll back reforms? "
On Tuesday, the president will travel to the Kuzbass coal-mining region of central Siberia, where he will visit local miners and metal workers, Itar-Tass reported. He will also be bringing a gift in return for support - a decree on developing the mining industry and the social infrastructure of mining towns and settlements.
Yeltsin is embroiled in a power struggle with the conservative legislature over the pace of economic reforms. But in this campaign, the president is not above trying to win votes at the expense of some of his free-market policies.
Last week he froze domestic oil prices, canceled planned rent increases and reversed an unpopular gasoline price hike in Moscow that had motorists in the capital grumbling that they would vote against the president.
According to Yeltsin's press service, he is planning at least two more day trips outside Moscow as well as meetings with intellectuals, trade unions, industrialists and leaders of the Russian Federation's 70 constituent regions and 21 autonomous republics.
Yeltsin's chief rival, parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, who last week told the heads of regional legislatures to vote against the president, was also campaigning Monday, meeting with leaders of youth and sports organizations to promise them greater support from the state, Itar-Tass said. Khasbulatov is expected to meet with World War II veterans Tuesday to address their concerns. Yeltsin met with veterans last week.
Under rules established by the Congress of People's Deputies, Russia's highest legislature, Yeltsin has to win the support of more than 53 million voters, or more than 50 percent of the electorate, in order to prevail in the April 25 referendum.
Many observers, citing voter apathy, consider this highly unlikely. A poll aired on the popular "Itogi" television news program Sunday found that 53 percent of those asked said they would vote their approval of the president, but only 39 percent said they would vote in favor of his policies.
Other polls have shown that barely 50 percent of the electorate plan to vote - making it nearly impossible for Yeltsin to win.
Yeltsin badly needs the support of Russia's 21 autonomous republics and 70 regions. But the leadership of the outlying regions is gradually slipping into the hands of the president's opponents, as the results of ballots this weekend showed.
The small rural region of Kalmykia, 1, 000 kilometers south of Moscow on the Caspian sea, elected Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a ruble billionaire and committed capitalist, as its first president.
Ilyumzhinov, who runs some 50 businesses ranging from gambling to publishing houses, has promised to establish an "economic dictatorship" to turn Kalmykia, which has small oil and gas reserves, "into a second Kuwait".
This would seem to be a positive development for Yeltsin. However, Ilyumzhinov, 31, is also a member of the Congress, where he belongs to the Change-New Policy faction that usually opposes Yeltsin and voted against him in last month's impeachment attempt.
In the southern region of Oryol, voters replaced Yeltsin appointee Nikolai Yudin with Yegor Stroyev, a former member of the Soviet Communist Party's ruling Politburo who won 70 percent of the vote, Reuters reported.
Izvestia said that Stroyev favored Chinese-style reforms, where the state would play a strong role, as opposed to the Russian government's radical free-market reforms.
In the city of Penza, 500 kilometers southeast of Moscow, hardline conservative Anatoly Kovlyagin replaced a Yeltsin nominee.
Conservative legislators in the tiny region of Mordovia appointed a new head of the local administration, a clear signal that they intended to ignore Yeltsin's decree annulling a decision they made last week to oust the local president, a Yeltsin supporter, and eliminate the regional presidency.
A pro-communist group in the nearby separatist region of Tatarstan plans to distribute leaflets urging the region's citizens to vote against Yeltsin. The group's leader, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Salij, told Interfax that the events in Mordovia were the beginning of a nationwide drive to eliminate the institution of the presidency.
Yeltsin appointees were replaced with candidates opposed to his vision of reform in elections in several regions organized after the Congress of People's Deputies last month deprived the president of the right to appoint regional administration heads.
Yeltsin met Monday with leaders of student groups with a combined membership of over 2 million to woo their support by promising to sign an order increasing state education subsidies and raising student's stipends to 4, 275 rubles from 3, 000 rubles. The legal voting age in Russia is 18.
"You are being asked to choose not between the Congress and the president", he told the students in an evening appearance at the Moscow Aviation Institute. "The choice is between two strategies: will we continue to move forward, learning from the rest of the world and correcting our mistakes, or will we put ourselves in the hands of those who want to roll back reforms? "
On Tuesday, the president will travel to the Kuzbass coal-mining region of central Siberia, where he will visit local miners and metal workers, Itar-Tass reported. He will also be bringing a gift in return for support - a decree on developing the mining industry and the social infrastructure of mining towns and settlements.
Yeltsin is embroiled in a power struggle with the conservative legislature over the pace of economic reforms. But in this campaign, the president is not above trying to win votes at the expense of some of his free-market policies.
Last week he froze domestic oil prices, canceled planned rent increases and reversed an unpopular gasoline price hike in Moscow that had motorists in the capital grumbling that they would vote against the president.
According to Yeltsin's press service, he is planning at least two more day trips outside Moscow as well as meetings with intellectuals, trade unions, industrialists and leaders of the Russian Federation's 70 constituent regions and 21 autonomous republics.
Yeltsin's chief rival, parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, who last week told the heads of regional legislatures to vote against the president, was also campaigning Monday, meeting with leaders of youth and sports organizations to promise them greater support from the state, Itar-Tass said. Khasbulatov is expected to meet with World War II veterans Tuesday to address their concerns. Yeltsin met with veterans last week.
Under rules established by the Congress of People's Deputies, Russia's highest legislature, Yeltsin has to win the support of more than 53 million voters, or more than 50 percent of the electorate, in order to prevail in the April 25 referendum.
Many observers, citing voter apathy, consider this highly unlikely. A poll aired on the popular "Itogi" television news program Sunday found that 53 percent of those asked said they would vote their approval of the president, but only 39 percent said they would vote in favor of his policies.
Other polls have shown that barely 50 percent of the electorate plan to vote - making it nearly impossible for Yeltsin to win.
Yeltsin badly needs the support of Russia's 21 autonomous republics and 70 regions. But the leadership of the outlying regions is gradually slipping into the hands of the president's opponents, as the results of ballots this weekend showed.
The small rural region of Kalmykia, 1, 000 kilometers south of Moscow on the Caspian sea, elected Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a ruble billionaire and committed capitalist, as its first president.
Ilyumzhinov, who runs some 50 businesses ranging from gambling to publishing houses, has promised to establish an "economic dictatorship" to turn Kalmykia, which has small oil and gas reserves, "into a second Kuwait".
This would seem to be a positive development for Yeltsin. However, Ilyumzhinov, 31, is also a member of the Congress, where he belongs to the Change-New Policy faction that usually opposes Yeltsin and voted against him in last month's impeachment attempt.
In the southern region of Oryol, voters replaced Yeltsin appointee Nikolai Yudin with Yegor Stroyev, a former member of the Soviet Communist Party's ruling Politburo who won 70 percent of the vote, Reuters reported.
Izvestia said that Stroyev favored Chinese-style reforms, where the state would play a strong role, as opposed to the Russian government's radical free-market reforms.
In the city of Penza, 500 kilometers southeast of Moscow, hardline conservative Anatoly Kovlyagin replaced a Yeltsin nominee.
Conservative legislators in the tiny region of Mordovia appointed a new head of the local administration, a clear signal that they intended to ignore Yeltsin's decree annulling a decision they made last week to oust the local president, a Yeltsin supporter, and eliminate the regional presidency.
A pro-communist group in the nearby separatist region of Tatarstan plans to distribute leaflets urging the region's citizens to vote against Yeltsin. The group's leader, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Salij, told Interfax that the events in Mordovia were the beginning of a nationwide drive to eliminate the institution of the presidency.