Russia goes to the polls: All you need to know

Russia goes to the polls: All you need to know

Russians are voting in parliamentary elections that will all but guarantee a win for President Vladimir Putin's party United Russia.

Opposition parties - riddled by division, sexual misconduct and facing massive electoral restrictions - stand little chance of making any in roads, despite a failing Russian economy and uncharacteristic blunders from government leaders.

However, a small but dedicated group of democrats are risking intimidation and violence to continue their campaign.

Here is a look at what you need to know about the parliamentary elections:

:: What are these elections?


Every five years, Russians go to the polls in local parliamentary elections. There are 450 seats up for grabs in the lower house of the Russian parliament (the State Duma), with 4,500 candidates running across 14 parties.

Some 2,000 of those candidates are running as independents.

Elected MPs will hold their seats for the next five years, with 266 seats needed by one party to win a majority.

Official campaigning was held from 20 August and ended on 16 September. There is a ban on campaigning the day before the elections.

:: How many parties are involved in the elections and who are they?

Fourteen official parties will contest the elections.

The main party in Russia is the current ruling party United Russia. It was created by President Vladimir Putin 15 years ago and is headed by Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.

It already has a majority of 238 seats in the Duma and is expected to do similarly well this year.

:: What about the other parties? Are there any official opposition parties in Russia?

Well, it is a bit complicated. In Russia, there is no true opposition in the western sense of the word.

Rather, there are two groups of varied parties, one sanctioned by the Kremlin, the other not.

:: So who is this so-called sanctioned opposition?

The Kremlin-approved group of opposition parties - or so-called "system" parties - comprises of the Communist Party (mostly older supporters, nostalgic about the old Soviet Union), the LDPR (a token Liberal-Democrat party which, in reality, is a far-right nationalist party that campaigns for the return of the old Soviet Union's borders), and Just Russia (a leftist, social-democratic party).

This collective of opposition parties is sponsored by the government and provides the acceptable and, more importantly, regulated face of Russian political opposition.

The same is true for the new liberal conservative Party of Growth, a business orientated party led by Mr Putin's business ombudsman Boris Titov.

:: And what about the non-official opposition? Is there one?

Yes, there is, but only just. In Russia, non-official opposition parties have been branded "non-systemic" by the Kremlin.

They operate outside of the government's approval and thereby face heavy restrictions. Their approval ratings rarely climb higher than 5%.

The two leading outsider opposition parties are Yabloko and Parnas.

Parnas (a Russian acronym meaning People's Freedom Party) is the party of the late Boris Nemtsov and headed by former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov. It is politically independent and faces constant pressure from pro-Kremlin activists.

Parnas members are regularly harassed and often have eggs thrown at them. Despite that, Parnas is participating in the elections for the first time.

They tried to run before but were blocked by the authorities citing bureaucratic excuses.

Mr Kasyanov - who was recently embroiled in a sex-tape scandal - has announced that if any of their candidates get voted into the Duma, they will launch an impeachment procedure against Putin.

Yabloko (Russian for "apple") is a long-serving pro-democracy party, founded by stalwart of the political scene Grigory Yavlinsky.

Additionally, former Yabloko member and anti-corruption whistleblower Alexei Navalny heads the tiny Progress Party, an unregistered party that whilst they are not competing in these elections, they are still an integral part of the "non-systemic" opposition.

And finally, Russian oligarch and formerly imprisoned head of the Yukos oil company Mikhail Khodorkovsky has founded Open Russia, a "horizontal alliance" of individuals and groups that hope to re-energise the Russian opposition.

Whilst not an official party in its own right, Open Russia does list (and fund) 19 possible candidates on its website, including Yabloko Party leader Grigory Yavlinsky, former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, anti-corruption activist Alexey Navalny, and Tatyana Yumasheva, daughter of the late President Boris Yeltsin.

Ahead of these elections, all three opposition parties - along with Khodorkovsky's Open Russia - were expected to form a democratic coalition to improve their chances of winning more votes.

But the coalition broke down a few months ago due to pressure from the government, internal squabbles and ego problems.

:: Is Putin standing in these elections?

No, he is not. His next test will come in the 2018 presidential elections which, judging by the nature of Russian politics and Mr Putin's genuinely high approval ratings, he is guaranteed to win.

Image: Mr Putin has high approval ratings in Russia

:: So who is expected to win these elections?

Last time Russians voted in parliamentary elections in 2011, United Russia got 49% of the vote, winning 238 seats in Duma.

The Communist Party came in second with 19%. The highest-polling opposition party was Yabloko with only 3% of the popular vote.

Since then, support for United Russia has waned with Levada - the only independent pollster operating in Russia before it was branded a "foreign agent" and shut down by the government - polling the ruling party at 31%, their lowest rating yet.

This significant decline is being attributed mainly to Russia's economic downturn. Again, the Communist Party is polling second place with 10%.

Parnas will consider itself amazingly successful if they get anywhere near third place.

:: Are the elections expected to be free and fair?

To many observers, elections in Russia are neither free nor fair. Indeed, not since March 2000 has a single nationwide vote in Russia been assessed by international observers as fair.

The ruling party controls almost all of the media landscape, denying opposition parties access to all-important TV airtime.

For most Russians, television is the main source of their information. Opposition parties are also comparatively poorly resourced with limited money to spend on campaigning.

Parnas' main campaign approach has been to go door-knocking which, in a country like Russia, is not very effective. EU observers are allowed to monitor the elections and they will issue their report the day after the vote.

:: So, it doesn't sound like much will change this time around?

After the 2011 local elections in Russia, a series of mass street protests followed, claiming the Kremlin had rigged the elections.

These protests greatly unsettled the Russian government, to the extent that there have been a couple of small changes in the election rules that have been engineered to seemingly further improve United Russia's chances of victory.

The most significant of these changes is the date of the elections: traditionally local elections in Russia were held in December, but this was brought forward to September.

The general consensus behind this change is the government's assumption that people will still be too occupied with the end of their summer holidays - a time when many Russians are busy harvesting the fruit and vegetables from their allotments and country houses - to concern themselves with politics.

It is also worth noting that this year, Russia's Central Election Committee has a new head: Ella Pamfilova, a respected human rights defender who might view an imbalanced election with a more critical eye.

She will certainly be an improvement to the former commission head Vladimir Churov, who was called a "magician" by the public for his participation in the widely criticised 2011 elections.