to become the president, handily defeating five other candidates with more than 57 percent of the vote. Yeltsin used his role as president of Russia to trumpet Russian sovereignty and patriotism, and his legitimacy as president was a major cause of the collapse of the coup by hard-line government and party officials against Gorbachev in August 1991 Soviet Coup of 1991. (see August coup of 1991) The coup leaders had attempted to overthrow Gorbachev in order to halt his plan to sign a New Union Treaty that they believed would wreck the Soviet Union. Yeltsin defiantly opposed the coup plotters and called for Gorbachev's restoration, rallying the Russian public. Most importantly, Yeltsin's faction led elements in the "power ministries" that controlled the military, the police, and the KGB to refuse to obey the orders of the coup plotters. The opposition led by Yeltsin, combined with the irresolution of the plotters, caused the coup to collapse after three days. Following the failed August coup, Gorbachev found a fundamentally changed constellation of power, with Yeltsin in de facto control of much of a sometimes recalcitrant Soviet administrative apparatus. Although Gorbachev returned to his position as Soviet president, events began to bypass him. Communist Party activities were suspended. Most of the union republics quickly declared their independence, although many appeared willing to sign Gorbachev's vaguely-delineated confederation treaty. The Baltic states achieved full independence, and they quickly received diplomatic recognition from many nations. Gorbachev's rump government recognized the independence of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in August and September 1991. In late 1991, the Yeltsin government assumed budgetary control over Gorbachev's rump government. Russia did not declare its independence, and Yeltsin continued to hope for the establishment of some form of confederation. In December, one week after the Ukrainian Republic approved independence by referendum, Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Belarus met to form the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). In response to calls by the Central Asian and other union republics for admission, another meeting took place in Alma-Ata, on 21 December, to form an expanded CIS. At that meeting, all parties declared that the 1922 treaty of union, which had established the Soviet Union, annulled and that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. Gorbachev announced the decision officially on 25 December 1991. Russia gained international recognition as the principal successor to the Soviet Union, receiving the Soviet Union's permanent seat on