Russia: Zyuganov Seeks to Rebrand as More Than a Communist 🗳️

(28 Jun 1996) Natural Sound

Boris Yeltsin's Communist rival in the Presidential elections, Gennady Zyuganov, is trying to shed his staid Communist image.

He even took to the dance floor in Moscow this week in a bid to sway Russian voters.

Zyuganov lost to President Yeltsin by a margin of 3 (m) million votes in the first round of the Russian Presidential elections earlier this month.

Gennady Zyuganov took a leaf from Boris Yeltsin's political primer Thursday night and took time off to rub shoulders and dance a folk step or two with the Russian 'narod' (common folk).

The Communist candidate is trailing Yeltsin in most opinion polls in the run-up to the second round of the Russian presidential elections on July 3.

But with the latest rumors of Yeltsin's poor health, Zyuganov took the chance to prove his own stamina.

Cheered on by his supporters, he tried to look just like a regular party-goer, swilling beers and cutting a mean polka at a local Moscow bar -- despite the fact that the number of journalists outnumbered the actual number of clients in the establishment.

Wiping the sweat streaming down his face, he barely kept his ample belly in check as he twirled his various female dance partners across the dance floor.

Zyuganov is commonly seen as the most wooden of candidates, and his attempts to look relaxed and natural often come up short in comparison with Boris Yeltsin's easier manner.

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