RUSSIA’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: FIRST ROUND INCONCLUSIVE.

With 82 percent of the cast ballots counted by 09:00 Moscow time (05:00 GMT) on June 17, Russia’s Central Election Commission said that President Boris Yeltsin led the field of candidates with 35.02 percent of the vote, followed by Communist party candidate Gennady Zyuganov with 31.53 percent, retired General Aleksandr Lebed with 14.89 percent, economic reformer Grigory Yavlinsky with 7.56 percent, ultranationalist politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky with 5.96 percent, former CPSU and USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev with 0.5 percent, and four other candidates with a few decimal points each. Presidential aides quoted Yeltsin as expressing dissatisfaction with his total because he had wanted to win an absolute majority in the first round. Analysis of the first-round returns is already focusing on Yeltsin’s and Zyuganov’s competition for the votes of the other candidates, particularly Lebed, Yavlinsky, and Zhirinovsky, in the runoff election expected to be held in early July. (Russian and Western agencies, June 17)

Observers Relatively Satisfied.