Russians are voting to elect the State Duma -- lower house of the Parliament on Sunday that is expected to hand victory to Vladimir Putin's party United Russia.
Voting for representation in the country's 450-seat chamber takes place across Russia's nine time zones with polls closing at 1700GMT on Sunday.
Currently United Russia had 315 seats in the fifth Duma, which allowed him as Prime Minister to push through laws shelving Soviet era perks like free healthcare and education.
Sunday's parliamentary election will be followed by a presidential ballot in March, this election is seen as an indication of public support for Putin as he prepares to run for a historic third term as president on March 4,2012. The next president will be in office for six years rather than four.
There are enough indications that United Russia will maintain the majority , the Communist Party of Russian Federation (KPRF), the ultranationalist LDPR and A Just Russia, which are already represented in the lower house while the three outsiders - Yabloko, the Right Cause and Patriots of Russia are unlikely to cross 7 per cent votes threshold.
The KPRF and A Just Russia party of ex-upper house chairman Sergei Mironov are expected to gain from anti-incumbency wave in the regions.
Russia has hosted over 700 foreign monitors to observe the poll process in the country amid the allegations of violations of election law, with Russia's only independent monitoring group, Golos, logging 5,300 complaints.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned the West against interfering in Russia's elections after the crackdown. 'Golos' was fined 30 thousand roubles (about Rs 50,000) by a civil court allegedly for indulging in smear campaign against United Russia and some other parties, which is banned in the election law.
Lawmakers from the ruling United Russia party, the ultra-nationalist Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR), and the A Just Russia party made a formal request to the Prosecutor General's Office to look into Golos' payroll.
Russia's political system
The state Duma is the lower house in the Federal Assembly. It is the more powerful house, so all bills, even those proposed by the Federation Council, must first be considered by the Duma.
The upper house in the Russian Federal Assembly is the Federation Council. The Council has 168 members who are known as senators. Each of the 84 federal subjects of Russia sends two members to the Council.
The federal subjects are the 21 republics, the 47 oblasts, the eight krais, the two federal cities, the five autonomous okrugs and one autonomous oblast (each category of which has different powers).
Putin appeals
Without naming United Russia, Putin urged voters to choose "responsible politicians, who can help improve our people's living standards in practice, and who will be guided in their actions by the interests of voters and national interests".
Seven parties have been allowed to field candidates for parliament this year .currently the parliament, or State Duma, is dominated by Putin's party, with seats also held by the Communist Party, the nationalist Liberal Democrats and the social-democratic Fair Russia.
But Russians are fed up with corruption and want reforms in the present system .There is also a widening gulf between the rich and the poor.
Though Medvedev had made tackling corruption one of his key priorities, he has admitted only having limited success at beating the problem.
Russia's foreign policy
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently vowed a "reasonable and adequate" response to the US missile shield in Europe, viewed by Moscow as a mortal threat to the country's nuclear deterrent.
On the other hand Washington cited that the system poses no threat to Russia and is needed to protect against missiles that could be fired from countries with smaller arsenals such as Iran.
Viewing the nuclear arms reduction agreement as a cornerstone for resetting US relations with Russia after years of tension on Feb 2011,the new START treaty III came into force in Munich with the exchange of ratification documents by the countries' heads of diplomacy.
The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, requires both sides to reduce their arsenal of warheads by roughly one-third of current levels - from 2,200 to 1,550.
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