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
Mikhail Gorbachev War, curtailing the human rights abuses that occurred in the Soviet Union, and tolerating the fall of Marxist–Leninist administrations in eastern and central Europe. Conversely, in Russia he is often derided for not stopping the Soviet collapse, an event which brought economic crisis and a decline in Russia's global influence. Gorbachev was born on 2 March 1931 in the village of Privolnoye, Stavropol Krai. At the time, Privolnoye was divided almost evenly between ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians. Gorbachev's paternal family were ethnic Russians and had moved to the region from Voronezh several generations before; his maternal family were of