Rural Russians Rally Round Yeltsin Appointee

The governor appointed by President Boris N. Yeltsin in the “red belt” region of Saratov crushed his Communist challenger in the first of 52 autumn elections for control of Russia’s provincial heartland, complete returns showed Monday.

The lopsided outcome of Sunday’s closely watched election spelled trouble for the Communists’ goal of rebounding from defeat in the July presidential vote by gaining power at the grass roots.

Even more humiliating for the Communists, the defeat came in a place they counted as theirs. Saratov, a largely rural region straddling the Volga River 420 miles southeast of Moscow, gave big pluralities in December to Communists now in parliament and later to Communist Party leader Gennady A. Zyuganov in his race against Yeltsin.

Dmitri Ayatskov, 45, an economist installed as governor five months ago, collected 81% of the vote Sunday, to 16% for Anatoly Gordeyev, an economic advisor to Zyuganov and a member of Russia’s lower house of parliament.

Presidential advisors hailed the result as a victory not only for an energetic, can-do reformer but for a master Kremlin strategy to be adapted for Yeltsin-backed incumbents in the races to come.

“This election is a . . . showcase . . . of political cooperation between the regions and the center,” said Kremlin strategist Vyacheslav A. Nikonov. “We steered clear of politics and concentrated on solving real problems.”

In Saratov, that meant borrowing many of the techniques that boosted Yeltsin’s comeback campaign while refraining from a formal presidential endorsement or an ideological attack on the challenger.

Ayatskov had been named to replace an ineffective appointee whom the Kremlin held responsible for popular discontent in Saratov and Communist gains last winter. The new governor secured an infusion of cash from Moscow, and, like Yeltsin in the presidential race, used the powers of incumbency to the fullest.

He replaced nearly all the region’s mayors with loyalists. He traveled nonstop, giving away tax concessions and energy discounts without the regional legislature’s approval. He finished long-delayed hospital and road construction, paid overdue wages and brought in enough farm equipment to reap a record grain harvest. He argued that a Communist victory would shut off Moscow’s largess.

The strategy was a hit with voters, who rejected the challenger’s aloofness from the region and his appeals to traditional Communist ideology, analysts said.

“In July, people here voted Communist to protest their living conditions and the delay of their salaries and pensions,” said Olga Petrova, economic and political editor of the newspaper Saratovskiye Vesti. “This time they voted for the governor because they trust him as a manager.”

Svetlana Tsalik, a Russian political scientist, said the result showed that “demographics are not destiny in Russia . . . that even in the most conservative regions, reformers can use the powerful levers of incumbency to win.”

Most chief executives of the Russian Federation’s 89 regions and republics were appointed by Yeltsin. Thirty-eight of them have now been elected in their own right, and the remaining 51 must face voters by year’s end. Political analysts say Communist victories in more than 20 races could tip the balance against the government in the largely pro-Yeltsin Federation Council, the 178-seat upper house of parliament composed of regional chiefs and parliamentary leaders. Communists already dominate the lower house.

Gennady K. Rebrov, head of the Communists’ Moscow regional party committee, acknowledged that Sunday’s race was a bellwether for the fall contests and criticized his comrades in Saratov for blowing it.

“Their work was not energetic and fervent,” he said.