1996 Mikhail Gorbachev presidential campaign 1996 Mikhail Gorbachev presidential campaign The Mikhail Gorbachev presidential campaign, 1996 was an electoral campaign effort by former President of the Soviet Union and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1996 Russian presidential election. Gorbachev's candidacy was beset by the obstacles of both minimal media coverage and a high level of distain towards him amongst the Russian populace. Gorbachev's candidacy ended in defeat during the first round of the election. The effort was the first, and only, electoral campaign of Gorbachev's post-Soviet political career. Gorbachev had led the Soviet Union from 1985
1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt case a state of emergency was declared in the USSR. Later, Kryuchkov brought Soviet Defense Minister Dmitry Yazov, Internal Affairs Minister Boris Pugo, Premier Valentin Pavlov, Vice-President Gennady Yanayev, Soviet Defense Council deputy chief Oleg Baklanov, Gorbachev secretariat head , and CPSU Central Committee Secretary Oleg Shenin into the conspiracy. The members of the GKChP hoped that Gorbachev could be persuaded to declare the state of emergency and to "restore order". On 23 July 1991, a number of party functionaries and literati published in the hardline newspaper "Sovetskaya Rossiya" as a prime factor to an anti-Perestroika manifesto entitled A Word