About Gennady Zyuganov
Gennady Andreyevich Zyuganov is a Russian politician who has been the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation since 1993 and a member of the State Duma since 1994. He is also the chair of the Union of Communist Parties – Communist Party of the Soviet Union (UCP-CPSU) since 2001. Zyuganov ran for President of Russia four times, most controversially in 1996, when he lost in the second round to Boris Yeltsin. He became the First Secretary of the local Komsomol and the regional chief for ideology and propaganda. Yeltsin gained from the elimination of the many smaller parties, as well as the support of Alexander Lebed, and eventually won the two-man showdown by 53.8% against 40.7%. It has been alleged that Yeltsin may not have legitimately won the 1996 presidential election, but instead employed electoral fraud.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.