Boris will retain power because Boris wants to

RUSSIA'S presidential election on June 16th is the most important European poll for decades. It is not simply a matter of a people being basked to decide who their president should be, but a vote on the future of the largest country on Earth; a decision on whether or not Russia should revert to communism.

It will be a close call according to the opinion pollsters, but in this correspondent's view President Yeltsin will retain power after a second round of voting on July 7th.

Mr Yeltsin will win for one important reason: he wants to win and he always gets his way. He is out to twin and is going to make sure he does through a vast list of promises a hectic campaign schedule and his control of the mass media and, more particularly, of television.

If this three pronged strategy fails there are those in Russia and abroad who believe that the counting of the votes will be manipulated in the President's favour. Paradoxically this view is shared in Russia by his communist opponents and abroad by those at the opposite political pole, members of conservative Republican think tanks in the United States.

On this occasion Mr Yeltsin has come up with a list of promises which, if fulfilled, would probably bankrupt the country, but two of them in particular are likely to boost his personal support, which at the start of the year was as low as 6 Perhaps the most important promise is to end conscription by the year 2000. This would be costly to implement as a professional standing army would have to be created in less than four years, but the promise has brought relief to millions of Russians who fear the brutality which military service entails in that country.

On top of this, the Chechen war, particularly in its early stages, has seen badly trained youngsters being sent as cannon fodder against skilled rebel fighters.

The recent peace agreement in "Chechnya has been good news for Mr Yeltsin and he has portrayed it in a way that will attract voters from both the liberal and hard line nationalists camps. His meeting with rebel leaders will please the liberals and his announcement on TV from Grozny that the war was over because "Russia has won" was designed to please those who wanted even tougher measures.

Things could, of course, go wrong, but a breakdown of the Chechen peace deal would only have a couple of weeks to percolate through before the first round of voting.

The other promises offer something to almost every section of the community, but there is a particular emphasis on benefits to pensioners and war veterans - a group most likely to be attracted to the policies of the communist candidate, Mr Gennady Zyuganov.

Mr Yeltsin's campaign has been hectic. He has spent a great deal of his time in the air, covering vast tracts of a country which covers one sixth of the world's surface. For a man who had two heart attacks in a year and who has had a serious problem with alcohol, he has taken to the campaign with energy and mixed much more easily with the people than a dull Mr Zyuganov has been able to do.

The coverage of that campaign has dominated the nation's television screens. When Mr Yeltsin appears he is shown surrounded by cheering well wishers, on the much rarer occasions when Mr Zyuganov has been shown he has been accompanied by people waving proYeltsin banners.

One of the low points of Mr Yeltsin's campaign so far has been a visit to the city of Yaroslavl, generally regarded as one of the most liberal and anti communist regions in Russia. Here Mr Yeltsin was booed, jeered and barracked at every turn. The incidents were reported in the West, but not in Russia. A report on Russian television that Mr Zyuganov was forced to leave the (stage by angry citizens of a town in the Urals has been denied by Western reporters who were present.

Earlier, there had been even greater bias against the liberal economist, Mr Grigory Yavlinsky, who in early opinion polls was wells ahead of Mr Yeltsin and was seen by pollsters as the only capable of beating the communists.

Unfavourable TV coverage and, it must be said, Mr Yavlinsky's tactic of delaying his campaign until the final two weeks before polling day, have put Mr Yeltsin in the position of offering himself as the only realistic alternative to a return to communism.

This is likely to be Mr Yeltsin's, trump card should he, as the polls predict, be left to fight it out head to head with Mr Zyuganov in the second round of voting which will be necessary if none of the 11 candidates gains more than 50 per cent of the vote on June 16th.

But Russian polls are extremely unreliable. Senior Yeltsin aides have even admitted to Time magazine that they have been releasing false figures from non existent polls in an all out attempt to get the president re elected.

As for the vote itself, right from the beginning of the campaign there have been rumours of planned voterigging. The Boston Globe, quoting senior US intelligence officials, has claimed a "dry run" for vote rigging in the presidential election took place in the parliamentary elections last December when, after a long delay in the count, the parties of Gen Alexander Lebed and former prime minister, Mr Yegor Gaidar, just failed to get the 5 per cent necessary for representation in the state Duma.

A NEW computerised system of counting will be introduced in this particular election, and there have been some outrageous claims about possible falsification of results. Mr Zyuganov, for example, is on record as believing the computer can be interfered with by American satellites in outer space.

There are more than 100,000 polling stations in Russia and international observers will be able to monitor only a tiny percentage of them, but Mr Zyuganov has promised to have a communist observer at every single station.

The deputy chairman of the Central Election Commission, Mr Alexander Ivanchenko, has different views. It would, he told the official ITAR TASS news agency last week, take four or five days to announce preliminary results of the vote as time would be necessary to receive and process the voting results".

Current legislation ensured a democratic voting procedure and an efficient level of control, Mr Ivanchenko said, adding that "no public control over vote counting" was necessary.

If, as predicted, the communists lose, it now appears certain they will claim the vote has been rigged. They are likely to obstruct legislation, particularly the ratification of the Start-2 treaty, in the Duma, which they control. Some believe they will take to the streets and violence will flare in Moscow for the third time in five years.

Mr Zyuganov has said street violence is ruled out, but should he lose the election his position as leader will be weakened and there are others ready to take over.