1996 Russian presidential election

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1996 Russian presidential election

← 1991 16 June 1996 (first round) 3 July 1996 (second round) 2000 →
Opinion polls
Registered	108,589,050 (second round)
Turnout	68.78% (5.89pp) (second round)
Nominee Boris Yeltsin Gennady Zyuganov Party Independent Communist Popular vote 40,203,948 30,102,288 Percentage 54.40% 40.73%
Second round results by federal subject Yeltsin:      45–50%      50–55%      55–60%      60–65%      65–70%      70–75%      75–80% Zyuganov:      45–50%      50–55%      55–60%      60–65%
President before election Boris Yeltsin Independent Elected President Boris Yeltsin Independent

Presidential elections were held in Russia on 16 June 1996, with a second round being held on 3 July 1996. It resulted in a victory for the incumbent Russian president Boris Yeltsin, who ran as an independent politician. Yeltsin defeated the Communist Party of the Russian Federation challenger Gennady Zyuganov in the second round, receiving 54.4% of the vote. Yeltsin's second inauguration ceremony took place on 9 August 1996.

Yeltsin would not complete the second term for which he was elected, as he resigned on 31 December 1999, eight months before the scheduled end of his term on 9 August 2000. This was the first presidential election to take place in post-Soviet Russia. As of 2024, this has also been the only Russian presidential election in which no candidate was able to win on the first round, and as such a runoff election was necessary.

Although most contemporaneous reports certified the 1996 election result, the election has been associated with various counts of pro-Yeltsin media bias and foreign influence, as well as allegations of electoral fraud or that it was an unfair election. Critics also argued that Yeltsin had engaged in vote buying by utilizing state finances to fund social programs, to which he responded he was merely doing his duties as president. Others argued that the allegations were exaggerated, and that the then United States government in fact refrained from covert operations and did not grant all of Yeltsin's requests.