Russia to elect Vladimir Putin's successor

BRUSSELS - Russian voters will go to the polls on on Sunday (2 March) to elect a new president, with the Kremlin-backed Dmitry Medvedev seen as almost certain to win the country's most powerful seat.

Mr Medvedev currently serves as a first deputy prime minister as well as a chairman of Russia's state-run gas monopoly, Gazprom. He is a close ally of the outgoing President Vladimir Putin.

"Every voice of yours will be important," Mr Putin said in his farewell address on Friday (29 February), urging fellow citizens - some 109 million are eligible to vote - to participate in the election.

Mr Medvedev's presidential bid also enjoys backing from the largest pro-Putin party, United Russia, which controls some two-thirds of seats in the Russian parliament.

According to an opinion poll by Moscow-based independent Levada Analytical Center, the 42-year old lawyer is likely to win up to 80 percent of the popular vote and therefore easily defeat his three political rivals.

Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the Communist Party of Russia; Vladimir Zhirinovski, who leads the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia; and Andrei Bogdanov, the leader of the Democratic Party of Russia are also running for the presidential seat.

However, the most vocal opponents of the Kremlin - such as ex-Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov, former chess champion Garry Kasparov or former deputy prime minister Boris Nemtsov - were either barred from standing in the race or withdrew their bid due to political difficulties.

Earlier this month, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the world's main election watchdog, decided not to send a monitoring team to Russia, citing "restrictions imposed on its planned election observation mission" as a reason.

The head of Russia's electoral commission, Vladimir Churov, has expressed reservations over the media coverage of the campaign, which he said was "fair but not equal".

"That's a problem not only for our country but I can agree that not all candidates have an equal number of news items," Mr Churov told the BBC in an interview.

Backstage power-sharing deal

Should he be elected, Mr Medvedev will replace Vladimir Putin, who is now coming to the end of his second presidential term. The Russian constitution bars Mr Putin from seeking a third term, but he has already accepted an offer to become the country's prime minister.

"If citizens show trust in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him president, I will be ready to head the government without changing the institutional powers of the president and government," Mr Putin said in December.

This backstage deal between the two men is seen by observers as a distribution of power within a single team. Whether the prime minister's role will indeed be strengthened at the expense of the president, remains to be seen, however.

EU-Russia ties

Currently, EU-Russia relations are being tested by several thorny issues, including energy supplies, Kosovo's self-declared independence and the US' plans to place parts of a missile defence shield in Central Europe.

Most recently, Mr Medvedev joined forces with Mr Putin in criticism of the West over Kosovo. "The stability and security of the whole region are being put under threat. All you have to do is put a match to it and the whole thing will catch fire," he said on Wednesday (27 February).

According to Andrew Wilson of the European Council on Foreign Relations, EU leaders "should not race against each other to be Mr Medvedev's new best friend".

"He may indeed be business friendly and a relative liberal for Russia," Mr Wilson argues, but at the same time, "he remains the willing servant of a system where power rests on shadowy deals and methods unacceptable in any true democracy".

Mr Wilson also suggests the 27-nation bloc use the election as "a catalyst to transform its own ways of dealing with Russia" in order to overcome disunity present during the Putin era.