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VLADIVOSTOK, Russia - Residents of Russia's remote Far East cast ballots for a new parliament in sub-zero temperatures on Sunday to open voting overshadowed by opposition accusations that pro-Kremlin forces enjoy an unfair advantage.
The first of around 96,000 polling stations across this sprawling nation, in the far
northeastern province of Chukotka bordering Alaska, opened at 8am local time Sunday (2am Sun NZT) Saturday), election officials said.
More than 100 million Russians are eligible to vote in an election widely viewed as a referendum on President Vladimir Putin. Pollsters predict his United Russia party will win an overwhelming victory and secure more than 60 percent of seats.
Putin, 55, is by far Russia's most popular politician after presiding over eight years of an economic boom. He aims to retain influence after stepping down as president in early 2008 and says a strong mandate from voters will give him that right.
Two hours after voting started, polling stations opened in Vladivostok, Russia's gateway into the Pacific and a naval base.
"I voted for Putin," 68-year-old pensioner Valentin Nenashev told Reuters after casting the first ballot at polling station No. 130 in central Vladivostok. "I voted for a better life, for stability in the country."
He said he had come so early because he planned to go fishing straight afterwards. On a crisp and frosty morning, pensioners and sailors in black peajackets were trickling into this station with more than 2,000 registered voters.
Opposition woes
Increasingly marginalized opposition parties have complained that numerous election rule changes, heavily skewed media coverage, repeated instances of government pressure on voters and Putin's own campaigning have made the contest unfair.
Publication of opinion polls is banned in the days before the vote but pollsters say the Communists are the only party other than United Russia assured of exceeding the 7 percent threshold to qualify for seats in the new Duma.
Putin has insisted the elections will be completely democratic. He has attacked foreigners for "poking their snotty noses" into Russia's internal affairs and accused opposition politicians of being stooges for Western powers.
The West's main election watchdog body, the ODIHR, will not be monitoring the vote. It pulled out after a row with Moscow over delays in issuing visas.
Just around 300 foreign observers, roughly half of them from ex-Soviet states, had been accredited to watch the election. The Kremlin says checks by foreign monitors are unnecessary because Russia has high standards of democracy.
Predictable result
The predictable result of Sunday's vote and a dull campaign lacking debate on key issues have generated apathy among voters. This has sparked an official push to get the turnout up to at least the 56 percent figure in the last Duma elections in 2003.
Last-minute efforts to boost participation were going on across the country, with mobile phone companies sending text messages to subscribers telling them to vote and some state companies ordering staff to cast ballots at work on Sunday.
The small liberal party Yabloko complained to the Central Electoral Commission a TV broadcast by Putin on Thursday telling Russians to vote for United Russia had broken election rules.
"This was a flagrant violation of the legislation, an abuse of office in the interests of one party," Sergei Mitrokhin, Yabloko deputy chairman, told Ekho Moskvy radio on Saturday.
Central Electoral Commission chairman Vladimir Churov has said Putin has a right to campaign publicly for his party because he is a registered candidate.
The right-wing SPS party, the target of several attacks by the authorities in the final stages of the campaign, complained that riot police had attempted to break into its offices in the southern city of Krasnodar. Police refused comment.
- REUTERS