and outlandish conduct by Zhirinovsky had diminished the public perception of his stature to such a degree that, by 1996, he was seen as a buffoonish figure and was no longer seen as a viable candidate. Gennady Zyuganov Communist Party of the Russian Federation-leader Gennady Zyuganov successfully advanced to the second-round of the election, where he was defeated by Yeltsin. Coming off of a very successful Communist Party performance in the 1995 legislative election, when he launched his campaign, Zyuganov had originally been seen as the frontrunner to win the election. Conduct In their report, the International Republican Institute stated that their election observers, "witnessed no deliberate attempts to commit electoral fraud and, indeed, in the tracking of protocols through the various levels of Russia's electoral system, observed transparency in the process." In their analysis, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs declared that, while the election failed to be "free and fair" in regards to media coverage and campaign financing, it appeared to have largely succeeded in being "free and fair" in regards to the administration of voting and vote-counting. Observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reported that the first round of the election, "appeared to be generally well run, and not seriously marred by some problems which occurred in the pre-election campaign. The delegation considered the first round of the Russian Presidential elections to have been conducted in a generally free and fair manner." The OSCE also reported that, "Delegation members considered voter participation in the political campaign to be quite active compared to previous Russian elections. A relatively open flow of information concerning candidates and their platforms was made available to voters during the pre-election campaign. However, opposition candidates charged that the state controlled electronic broadcast media did not provide fair and balanced coverage, and this was also observed to be the case by delegation members. The bias appeared to be primarily in favor of the President." Additionally, the OSCE reported that, "The delegation found that Polling Station Election Committees (PSECs) generally followed proper procedures and enforced the one-man-one-vote principle, although scattered instances of minor irregularities, such as family voting and voting outside of polling booths were observed." In a post-election analysis published in the journal Presidential Studies Quarterly Erik Depov asserted, "The inaccuracy of many early predictions was primarily because Yeltsin's successful re-election bid had as much to do with