1991 Russian presidential election in the context of "President of Russia"

The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (RSFSR) and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia, was a socialist state from 1917 to 1922, and afterwards the largest and most populous constituent republic of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1922 to 1991, until becoming a sovereign part of the Soviet Union with priority of Russian laws over Union-level legislation in 1990 and 1991, the last two years of the existence of the USSR. The Russian SFSR was composed of sixteen smaller constituent units of autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group. The capital of the Russian SFSR and the USSR as a whole was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad (Petrograd until 1924), Stalingrad (Volgograd after 1961), Novosibirsk, Sverdlovsk, Gorky and Kuybyshev.

On 7 November 1917 [O.S. 25 October], as a result of the October Revolution, the Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed as a sovereign state and the world's first constitutionally socialist state guided by communist ideology. The first constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922, the Russian SFSR signed a treaty officially creating the USSR. On 12 June 1990, the Congress of People's Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty. On 12 June 1991, Boris Yeltsin, supported by the Democratic Russia pro-reform movement, was elected the first and only President of the RSFSR, a post that would later become the Presidency of the Russian Federation. The August 1991 Soviet coup d'état attempt in Moscow with the temporary brief internment of President Mikhail Gorbachev destabilised the Soviet Union. Following these events, Gorbachev lost all his remaining power, with Yeltsin superseding him as the pre-eminent figure in the country. On 8 December 1991, the heads of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the Belovezha Accords declaring dissolution of the USSR and established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) as a loose replacement confederation. On 12 December, the agreement was ratified by the Supreme Soviet (the parliament of the Russian SFSR); therefore the Russian SFSR had renounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russia's independence from the USSR itself and the ties with the other Soviet republics.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1 February 1931 – 23 April 2007) was a Russian politician and statesman who served as President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. He was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1961 to 1990. He later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism.

Yeltsin was born in Butka, Ural Oblast. Growing up in Kazan and Berezniki, he worked in construction after studying at the Ural State Technical University. After joining the Communist Party, he rose through its ranks, and in 1976, he became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee. Yeltsin was initially a supporter of the perestroika reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. He later criticized the reforms as being too moderate and called for a transition to a multi-party representative democracy. In 1987, he was the first person to resign from the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which established his popularity as an anti-establishment figure and after which he earned the reputation of the leader of the anti-communist movement. In 1990, he was elected chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet and in 1991 was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR), becoming the first popularly-elected head of state in Russian history. Yeltsin allied with various non-Russian nationalist leaders and was instrumental in the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December of that year. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the RSFSR became the Russian Federation, an independent state. Through that transition, Yeltsin remained in office as president. He was later re-elected in the 1996 Russian presidential election, which critics assert was rigged.

The 1991 Leningrad municipal elections took place on June 12, 1991 in the city of Leningrad (modern-day Saint Petersburg), located in the then-Soviet republic of Russia. The elections included the city's first popular mayoral election and a non-binding referendum on whether to change the city's name to its historic name of "Saint Petersburg". The elections coincided with the 1991 Russian presidential election.

Roughly two-thirds of the city's approximately three million eligible voters participated in the election.

Russian presidential elections determine who will serve as the president of Russia for the next six (formerly four from 1996 to 2012 and five from 1991 to 1996) years.

Since the establishment of the position of the President of Russia in 1991, the presidential elections have taken place eight times: in 1991, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2018, and 2024. The next presidential election is scheduled for March 2030.

A referendum on creating the post of President of Russia was held in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on 17 March 1991. The referendum was held alongside a referendum of the preservation of USSR. Prior to the referendum, the Russian head of state was the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian SFSR, elected by the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian SFSR. With 71% of voters approving the proposal, the post of President of the Russian SFSR was introduced, and two months later Boris Yeltsin was elected as the first president.