LEBED IN THE LEAD.

Lt. General (ret.) Aleksandr Lebed the vicechairman of the Congress of Russian Communities, leads the field of potential candidates for the 1996 presidential elections, according to an opinion survey commissioned in Russia by the Washington-based International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES). Just made public in Moscow, the data show Lebed with 14 percent, Yabloko leader Grigorii Yavlinsky with 12 percent, prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin with 10 percent, president Boris Yeltsin with 7 percent, communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov with 6 percent, and ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky with 5 percent of voter support. (4)

The findings corroborate those of several Russian surveys, mostly of uncertain overall reliability, as to Lebed´s front-runner status. Lebed has repeatedly accused Yeltsin of planning to cancel the election. As to other potential candidates listed, Chernomyrdin has announced that he won’t run, and Yavlinsky is vulnerable to use of the "ethnic card" against him in a way in which Zhirinovsky is not.

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