1991 Russian presidential election

Presidential elections were held in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) on 12 June 1991. This was the first Russian presidential election in the country's history. The election was held roughly three months after Russians voted in favor of establishing a presidency and holding direct elections in a referendum held in March that year. The result was a victory for Boris Yeltsin, who received 58.6% of the vote. In the election of the Supreme Soviet of Russia's Congress of People's Deputies of Russia lower chamber members in the 1990 Russian legislative election, communist candidates won 86% of the seats. On 31 May 1990, Boris Yeltsin was elected Chair of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation in a vote by the body's members; this made him the de facto leader of the Russian SFSR. The vote had been relatively close, as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had unsuccessfully tried to convince enough members of the Supreme Soviet to vote against Yeltsin. Yelstin made an active effort to push for the creation of an office of president and for a popular election to be held to fill it. Many saw this as a desire by Yeltsin to have a mandate and power separate from the tensely divided legislature. He ultimately succeeded in having Russia hold a referendum on 14 March 1991 on whether Russia should create offices of President and Vice President, and hold elections to fill them. Russians voted in favor of creating and holding elections to these offices. Following the referendum, there was a period of more than a week in which a stalemate had caused the Congress of People's Deputies to go without deciding whether or not to vote on whether the Russian Federation should have a directly elected president. On 4 April the Congress of People's Deputies ordered the creation of legislation to authorize the election. While still failing to set an official date for the election, the Congress of People's Deputies provisionally scheduled the election for 12 June. This provisional date would later become the official date of the election.