AS THE Russian presidential election campaign entered its final week, President Yeltsin promised a new metro system to the inhabitants of Kazan in Tatarstan. His main opponent, the Communist candidate, Mr Gennady Zyuganov, resorted to quotations from the Gospels at a weekend rally in Moscow.
The Kazan metro is the second in a week Mr Yeltsin has promised. He gave one also to the city of Ufa in Bashkortostan and his campaign strategy has been to offer massive hand outs to all sections of the community while warning the electorate that he is the only alternative to a return to communist rule.
About 9,000 supporters of Mr Zyuganov who turned up at Moscow's Luzhniki ice hockey stadium heard the communist leader quote from the Apocalypse of St John. Two beasts, he said, had been sent by the devil and had risen up out of hell just as the Bible had foretold.
One had a mark on his head and he was Mr Mikhail Gorbachev. The second one [President Yeltsin] is the anti Christ who brands people on their hands and tempts them.
He who bows to the beast or accepts his image will drink the wine of the wrath of God," he warned his audience.
If Mr Yeltsin is the beast then his image is to be seen all over Moscow, hand in hand with that of the city's popular mayor, Mr Yuri Luzhkov, on posters bearing the message: Muscovites, you have made your choice".
The slogan has drawn some cynical comment from those who believe that the election's result has already been decided in the Kremlin.
Even the president of Ukraine, Mr Leonid Kuchma, seemed to hint at this when, during a photo call in Warsaw with the Polish President, Mr Alexander Kwasniewski, he was overheard telling a "Russian joke".
A Kremlin aide approaches Mr Yeltsin on June 17th and says: "Boris Nikolayevich, the bad news is that Zyuganov has got 55 per cent of the vote." Mr Yeltsin is visibly shocked, but then the aide says: "The good news, Mr President, is that you have got 65 per cent.
Russians, used to vote manipulation under Soviet rule, seem prepared to believe that falsification is inevitable. The communists say it will be done by Mr Yeltsin's supporters, while the President's fans say it will be done by the communists who have announced they will send two observers to each of the country's polling stations next Sunday.
Fears of irregularities were heightened during the week when, the Defence Minister, Gen Pavel Grachev, announced blithely that sailors of the Russian navy who had voted in advance of the official polling date had cast their ballots "unanimously" in favour of Mr Yeltsin.
As for the other nine candidates in the field, only four are expected to put in a respectable showing. The democratic hope, Mr Grigory Yavlinsky, still says he is going to win although most of the opinion polls say that he will get between 5 and 6 per cent. Mr Yeltsin is ahead of Mr Zyuganov in all but one of the polls, the exception being the only polling organisation to have got its forecasts right in the two most recent parliamentary elections.
Mr Yavlinsky too thinks the election will be rigged: "I don't know of any event in our country where there would be no falsification. Both parties will try equally hard," he said.
The "wild card" in the election, the extreme right winger Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky, is running at 5 per cent in the polls but has always done better than anticipated. His posters in Moscow show hi nl embracing an aged Russian babushka (grandmother) who tells him: "You are our last hope and support." Many of these have been defaced with swastikas painted on to them by the public. Gen Alexander Lebed, a nationalist army officer, and the eye surgeon, Mr Sviatoslav Fyodorov, are tipped to get about 4 per cent each.
