he immediately began gathering in Moscow a younger and more energetic governing team of Communist Party members. On 4 April 1985 Yeltsin received a call from Gorbachev's leading protege Yegor Ligachev summoning him to Moscow to take up position as Head of the Construction Department of the Party's Central Committee.[17] Less than three months later he was promoted to be Secretary for Construction of the Central Committee, a position within the powerful CPSU Central Committee Secretariat.[6]
On 23 December 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party, effectively 'Mayor' of the Soviet capital, and as a result, on 18 February, 1986, Yeltsin was invited to become a Candidate (non-voting) Member of the Politburo. As a politburo member Yeltsin was also given a country house (dacha) which was previously occupied by Gorbachev who now moved to a much bigger and more luxurious purpose built dacha nearby. During this period, Yeltsin portrayed himself as a reformer and populist (for example, he took a trolleybus to work), firing and reshuffling his staff several times. He became popular among Moscow residents for firing corrupt Moscow party officials.