1991 Russian presidential election

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Presidential elections were held in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) on 12 June 1991. This was the first Russian presidential election in the country's history. The election was held roughly three months after Russians voted in favor of establishing a presidency and holding direct elections in a referendum held in March that year. The result was a victory for Boris Yeltsin, who received 58.6% of the vote.

In the election of the Supreme Soviet of Russia's Congress of People's Deputies of Russia lower chamber members in the 1990 Russian legislative election, communist candidates won 86% of the seats. On 31 May 1990, Boris Yeltsin was elected Chair of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation in a vote by the body's members; this made him the de facto leader of the Russian SFSR. The vote had been relatively close, as Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had unsuccessfully tried to convince enough members of the Supreme Soviet to vote against Yeltsin. Russians voted in favor of creating and holding elections to these offices. On 4 April the Congress of People's Deputies ordered the creation of legislation to authorize the election. While still failing to set an official date for the election, the Congress of People's Deputies provisionally scheduled the election for 12 June. This provisional date would later become the official date of the election. Ultimately, the Congress of People's Deputies would approve for an election to be held, scheduling its initial round of voting to be held roughly three months after the referendum had been decided. Several sub national elections were scheduled to coincide with the first round of the presidential election. This included mayoral elections in Moscow and Leningrad, and executive elections in federal subjects such as Tatarstan. There were also sub national referendums scheduled to coincide with the presidential election. These included a number of referendums in which cities were determining whether or not residents wanted to revert to their historic city names, such as in Sverdlovsk (historically Yekaterinburg) and Leningrad (historically Saint Petersburg).