MOSCOW, JUNE 3 -- Anatoly Sobchak, the reformist mayor of St. Petersburg whose political star soared along with Boris Yeltsin's as Soviet rule crumbled, has been defeated for reelection by his former deputy.
Sobchak cast his defeat as a backlash against reform-minded incumbents and said it spelled trouble for President Yeltsin, who faces a tough challenge from Communist candidate Gennady Zyuganov in his bid for reelection June 16. But like Sobchak, Yakovlev is a pro-Yeltsin reformer, and analysts cautioned against reading too much into the results.
"The conflict between them is totally different from the much more fundamental difference between Yeltsin and Zyuganov," said Alexander Kan, a St. Petersburg journalist now working for the Russian Service of the BBC in London.
"In Yeltsin and Zyuganov, we're dealing with an extremely charged ideological antagonism between two worlds: the old pro-Communist world and the more or less new pro-reform one," Kan said. "In the case of Sobchak and Yakovlev, it is closer to what you'd find in a normal Western election where various political figures represent opposing industrial groups and lobbies."
Sobchak, a stirring orator and close ally of Yeltsin in the early days of reform, was once viewed as a possible future president of Russia. But as mayor of St. Petersburg, he was seen as a somewhat aloof figure more interested in hobnobbing with Western investors and the city's cultural glitterati than in filling potholes and aiding struggling local industry.
That was particularly damaging in St. Petersburg, whose huge arms factories and industrial plants have been hobbled by Russia's post-Soviet economic crisis and plummeting production. Yakovlev, 51, who resigned as Sobchak's deputy two months ago to run against him, took a more nuts-and-bolts approach, saying he would be a tougher administrator and would focus on cleaning up schools and hospitals.
Sobchak and Yakovlev were the top two vote-getters among 14 candidates in the first round of the election May 19; neither received more than 50 percent of the vote, forcing the runoff. The Communist candidate got just 10 percent of the vote in the first round -- not surprising, since St. Petersburg is one of the most solidly pro-reform cities in Russia.
In Moscow today, Zyuganov met with ultranationalist presidential candidate Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who said they discussed the possibility of forming a coalition after the first round of the presidential election.
