Moscow, Nov 07: Russia's parliamentary election campaign opened today amid complaints about dirty-trick electioneering and uncertainty about who will benefit - and who might suffer - from the probe against the Yukos oil company. Candidates competing for 450 seats in the state Duma, the lower house of parliament, have 29 days to make their case to the country's voters.
The Duma, which was a check on presidential power during the rule of Boris Yeltsin, has been transformed into president Vladimir Putin's loyal servant. Dominated by a centrist, pro-Putin faction, it no longer offers the bitter opposition it did when communists were in charge during the Yeltsin era.
"The parliamentary election means so much more than voters realize," said Boris Fyodorov, a candidate for the little-known new course-automotive Russia party. "I don't understand why the whole world worries about the fate of one oligarch, but an election of people who will determine how government power is exercised generates little interest."
The arrest and jailing last month of tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who resigned this week as head of Yukos, and the escalating campaign against his company is casting a long shadow over the Dec 07 elections. But analysts and the candidates themselves remain confused about what that will mean.
Russia's Central Election Commission has registered 18 parties and five blocs. The majority is unlikely to clear the 5 percent threshold required to enter the imposing gray Duma building near Red Square. Bureau Report