PRESIDENT Boris Yeltsin appeared on Russian television yesterday after a mysterious five day absence, ending his election campaign with a stilted message to the electorate to support him.
He appeared heavily made up, spoke slowly and expressionlessly, was obviously reading from an auto cue, and failed to dispel worries about his health.
He had been missing from public view since last Wednesday, causing alarm in western circles.
However, his disappearance is unlikely to have a bearing on the election result as the compliant Russian media have failed to report it.
Opinion polls put Mr Yeltsin far ahead of his rival, the Communist Party candidate, Mr Gennady Zyuganov.
But Russian polls have an abysmal track record and have always underestimated the strength of the anti Yeltsin vote.
Some of Mr Yeltsin's advisers expressed fears yesterday that he had lost the initiative during his absence from the campaign. In the first round of voting, despite polls showing him 12 per cent ahead of his rival, he scraped home by a mere 3 per cent.
Nevertheless, Mr Yeltsin appears likely to win despite the worries about his health, and only a drop in turnout tomorrow seems capable of depriving him of victory.
A great deal now depends on the decision of voters who supported three of the candidates eliminated after the first round the nationalist Gen Alexander Lebed, the democratic candidate Mr Grigory Yavlinsky and the ultra nationalist Mr Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
Gen Lebed, who gained almost 5 per cent of the first round vote, has now joined Mr Yeltsin's team. But his campaign platform was closer to that of the Communists, and there is no guarantee that he can deliver votes in significant numbers to his new boss.
Mr Yavlinsky's vote of almost 8 per cent was drawn from anti communists who are far more likely to support Mr Yeltsin than Mr Zyuganov. Mr Zhirinovsky announced yesterday that he was asking his supporters to vote against both candidates, a choice which is permitted under Russian electoral law.
A dispute arose last night when state controlled television refused to broadcast an advertisement for Mr Zyuganov, saying that the fee for the air time had not been paid.
The Communists, claiming the money had been paid through a bank, said they complained to the Central Electoral Commission but the commission's head, Mr Nikolai Ryabov, refused to discuss it.
A Russian right wing film director, Mr Stanislav Govorukhin who made the commercial, told a news conference in Moscow yesterday that Mr Yeltsin was a "living corpse", using the words Zhivoi Trup, the title of a play by Tolstoy.
"We haven't seen him for several days and today they have shown us a painted mummy as if they had just taken it from the [Lenin] mausoleum," he said.
He did not blame Mr Yeltsin personally, but said his aides were traitors to the Russian nation, covering up Mr Yeltsin's ill health just as Communist Party officials covered up the ill health of the Soviet leader, Leon id Brezhnev.
Mr Govorukin's press conference was not covered by state controlled television. A short film clip from a press conference by Mr Zyuganov on the main news last night did not include the Communist candidate's reference to Mr Yeltsin's disappearance.
