VLADIVOSTOK, Russia (Agencies)
Russians voted on Sunday in a presidential poll seen by critics as rigged to hand almost certain victory to Vladimir Putin's favored candidate, Dmitry Medvedev.
Voting began on the Pacific coast of the world's biggest country, spreading hours later to eastern and central Siberia in its roll over 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) west to Moscow and on to the Baltic Sea territory of Kaliningrad where it is due to close at 1800 GMT Sunday.
Medvedev faces three challengers, but his overwhelming victory was almost a foregone conclusion after a campaign in which Russia's heavily censored television networks rammed home the message that he is Putin's anointed successor.
Opinion polls predicted an easy win for 42-year-old St. Petersburg lawyer and Kremlin official Medvedev that should ensure Putin stays on as the power behind the throne.
Election officials in the Far Eastern peninsula of Chukotka, the first of the nation's 11 time zones to cast ballots, said voting began on schedule at 0800 local (2000 GMT Saturday).
Polling stations also opened in Vladivostok, Russia's main naval base and gateway into the Pacific.
Exit polls and first results were due after the last of the
96,300 polling stations closed in the European enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland at 2000 (1800 GMT) on Sunday.
The last polls to be published said Medvedev would win 70-80 percent, way ahead of his nearest rival, 63-year-old Communist veteran Gennady Zyuganov on 10-16 percent.
Turnout was seen at around 70 percent, though critics said it would be inflated by factory managers and state officials who pressure employees to vote.
Putin, due to step down in May because of term limits, is by far Russia's most popular politician after presiding over an economic boom and 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 the polls.
Putin, however, 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 exactly 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 which, on paper, is more lowly. |
