After being buried in the polls for months, Boris Yeltsin has surged into a dead heat with his Communist challenger for the first time, benefiting from an aggressive campaign designed to put to rest concerns about his health and habits.
With less than eight weeks until the June 16 presidential election, experts now see Yeltsin's health as perhaps the biggest factor in the race. The president was hospitalized twice last year with heart problems.So far, the 65-year-old president appears to be not only holding up well under the strain of the campaign, but enjoying himself. Appearing at a Kremlin news conference Sunday alongside President Clinton, he guaranteed victory - a prediction so sweeping it made Clinton smile.
But two months is a long time in the turbulent world of Russian politics. And at least a third of the electorate is still undecided, whether it be about Yeltsin or the elections in general.
"The month of May is going to be very difficult," Yeltsin said Tuesday after landing in Khabarovsk, nearly 4,000 miles east of Moscow. He was making a campaign stop en route to an official visit to China.
"I have 16 trips planned and will travel around another half of Russia," he said.
Yeltsin has dominated the news this month, making campaign tours and hosting an international summit. The new poll showed him neck-and-neck with Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, the longtime front-runner.
Yeltsin was supported by 21 percent of respondents compared to Zyuganov's 20 percent, according to The Moscow Times-CNN poll, released Monday and published in the newspaper Tuesday.
The poll was conducted by the CESSI Institute for Comparative Social Research between April 10 and 20, even before the eight-nation nuclear summit in the Kremlin that demonstrated world leaders' strong support for Yeltsin.
Based on door-to-door interviews with 1,201 people, it carried a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The previous Moscow Times-CNN poll a month earlier had Yeltsin trailing Zyuganov 14 percent to 19 percent. In February, a poll by the independent Vtsiom organization showed Zyuganov leading by 14 points - 33 percent to 19 percent for Yeltsin.
Vladimir Andreyenkov, director of most recent poll, said Zyuganov's support appears to have peaked.
"He has already probably consolidated all of his supporters and has little left in reserve," Andreyenkov told the newspaper. "But if Yeltsin doesn't make any big mistakes, he will continue to earn votes."
Zyuganov discounted the poll during a news conference, saying the democrats always appear to be faring better than they are.
"Before the vote, the democrats' ratings grow sharply," he said. "After the elections, their ratings drop as sharply."
Economist Grigory Yavlinsky ranked third in the poll with 6 percent, and ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and retired Gen. Alexander Lebed were next with about 5 percent each.
Eye surgeon Svyatoslav Fyodorov polled 3 percent, while former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev again failed to top 1 percent.