Russians vote for new president

Opinion polls predicted a big win for 42-year-old St Petersburg lawyer and Kremlin official Dmitry Medvedev that should ensure Putin stays on as the power behind the throne. The focus will be on the turnout because a low one could take the shine off Medvedev's victory. Analysts say the Kremlin wants to ensure a turnout of at least 70 percent.         Â

Medvedev cast a vote for himself in the morning, accompanied by his wife, Svetlana. "I feel good. Spring has come," he said. Kremlin opponents accused the biggest television stations of slanting coverage in Medvedev's favour and noted election officials had barred some opposition challengers from running.

Russia is enjoying a long economic boom, fuelled by record prices for oil, gas and metals. Most people see the double act of Putin and Medvedev as prolonging their new-found prosperity.

Exit polls and first results are due after the last of the 96,300 polling stations close in the European enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Sunday. Russia has 11 time zones stretching from the Far East. The last opinion polls to be published said Medvedev would win 70-80 percent of the vote, way ahead of his nearest rival, 63-year-old Communist Gennady Zyuganov, on 10-16 percent. The surveys suggested turnout would be about 70 percent, though Kremlin critics said it would be inflated by factory managers and state officials who pressure employees to vote.

Most Western monitors were boycotting the election because of a dispute with election officials over the number of observers allowed and the duration of their stay. Andreas Gross, head of the only Western observer mission, said he would travel around various Moscow polling stations while colleagues would observe in St Petersburg and Yaroslavl. "We will talk tomorrow about our findings," Gross, head of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly delegation, said.

 

TEDDY BEARS, THEATRE TICKETS

In Vladivostok, Russia's main naval base and gateway to the Pacific, polling stations near student hostels tempted first-time voters with teddy bears and baseball caps. Seventy thousand free theatre and cinema tickets were distributed among voters in the Urals city of Chelyabinsk.

Putin, due to step down in May because the constitution prevents him from standing for a third term, is by far Russia's most popular politician after presiding over the economic boom and a rapid revival in Russian influence overseas. His endorsement in December of Medvedev, a colleague for almost 20 years, instantly catapulted the low-profile bureaucrat into the leading position in opinion polls. But Putin promised to maintain an influential role after the election and later said he would become prime minister under Medvedev -- a highly unusual division of power in a country used to one supreme leader.

It remains unclear how the new arrangement will work once Medvedev is installed in the Kremlin and his former boss and mentor moves to the prime minister's quarters to start a role that on paper is more lowly. Buoyed by generous amounts of airtime on state broadcasters and given considerable official support by his status as First Deputy Prime Minister, Medvedev scarcely campaigned.

Zyuganov, like other opposition politicians, complained of unfair treatment but the Communist leader won the vote of student Viktor Belkin in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. "I hadn't planned to vote," he said, a skateboard tucked under his arm. "But my grandmother asked me to vote for her friend, Gennady Zyuganov. I really love my grandmother and always listen to her."