a team of a handful of financial and media oligarchs to bankroll the Yeltsin campaign and guarantee favorable media coverage the president on national television and in leading newspapers. In return, Yeltsin's presidential administration allowed well-connected Russian business leaders to acquire majority stakes in some of Russia's most valuable state-owned assets. Additionally, to further guarantee consistent media coverage, in February Yeltsin had fired the chairperson of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company and replaced him with Eduard Sagalaev. While the anti-communist pro-Yeltsin media bias certainly contributed to Yeltsin's victory, it was not the sole factor. A similar anti-communist media bias in the run-up to the 1995 parliamentary elections had failed to prevent a communist victory. Additionally, Yeltsin himself had been able to win the 1991 presidential election in spite of a strongly unfavorable media bias towards him. Violations of campaign laws Yeltsin's campaign disregarded numerous campaign regulations. Analysis has indicated that Yeltsin's campaign spent well in excess of spending limits. Yeltsin also violated a law against broadcasting advertisements before 15 March. Yeltsin undertook many abuses of his power in order to assist his campaign effort. Following the election a financial fraud investigation was launched against Yeltsin's campaign. Fraud Instances of fraud were indicated to have taken place, but the various political actors, including the opposition, did not challenge the result. The Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation found in 1996 that the original second-round results reported from Mordovia were falsified. A significant number of votes that had been cast for Zyuganov were recorded as "Against All Candidates". The vote totals from Mordovia were subsequently adjusted by the Central Election Commission in order to remedy this. The Central Election Commission also discovered fraud in Dagestan, an ethnic republic which had experienced a very improbable change in voting patterns between rounds. The vote totals were revised to remedy this. Another instance of fraud was discovered in Karachay-Cherkessia by the Central Election Commission. The vote totals were adjusted to remedy for this as well. Allegations of fraud There have been a number of allegations claiming that there were further, and greater, instances of fraud than the aforementioned instances that had been discovered by the Central Election Commission. They include a number of allegations that assert that the election was unfair and favored Yeltsin, as well as some allegations that go as far as to assert that the entire election was