Polls to open all over Russia in regional elections on vote day.

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MOSCOW, October 11 (Itar-Tass) -- Russia has a vote day this Sunday to
hold 6,696 elections of various levels, local referendums and polls to
form borders of municipal districts.

About 30 million people are on the lists of registered voters to
participate in elections in 75 regions.
Regional parliaments will be elected in three regions -- the Moscow
City Duma, the Tula Regional Duma and the State Assembly of the Republic
of Mari El.
Three regional capitals -- Grozny, Astrakhan and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk --
are to elect mayors.
Voters in ten regions -- Ingushetia, Mari El, Chechnya, the Amur,
Arkhangelsk, Irkutsk, Kurgan and Sakhalin regions, and the Nenets and
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Areas -- will elect deputies to representative
bodies of municipalities -- legislatures of capitals.
For the first time local self-government bodies will be elected in
Ingushetia and Chechnya. Russian Central Election Committee head Vladimir
Churov noted that after the elections the two republics would be "fully
within the Russian legal field".
According to the Central Election Commission, voters in 69 regions
will elect deputies to representative bodies of local self-government. The
highest number of such elections will take place in the Krasnodar
Territory, the Bryansk, Volgograd, Vologda, Kurgan and Moscow regions.
All the seven political parties registered in Russia will participate
in the elections. The election commission noted their interest in
municipal-level elections. Commission member Gennady Raikov said the
number of party-nominated candidates considerably increased. They number
about half of the total number of contenders. This is indicative of the
fact that parties begin to work at the lower level, he noted.
All the four parliament parties -- United Russia, Just Russia, the
CPRF and the LDPR display proper activity. They nominated their candidates
in all the three regions where regional parliaments must be elected.
The lists of all the seven registered parties are on the ballot in the
Tula Region where elections will be held according only to the party list
system.
Moscow and Mari El will have the combined system. Six party lists are
registered in the capital. Aside from the State Duma's four, Yabloko and
Patriots of Russia are included. Only the recently formed Right Cause
refused to participate.
There are five party lists -- the four parliament parties and the
Right Cause -- in Mari El.
All the regions live according to Moscow time -- they are in one time
zone. So, election results are expected to come at one time. Preliminary
results will be sent through the GAS Vybory system to the Central Election
Commission's information centre. Under the law, it is prerogative of
regional election commissions to sum up official results.
On the whole in the country, voters must elect deputies for a total of
42,700 seats in legislative bodies of various levels. Almost 90,000
registered candidates compete for them.
The Central Election Commission is pleased with the election campaign.
On the whole, the campaign was rather well organised. There was real
competition. People are expected to willingly go to the polls, Churov said
before the elections. He also noted that the number of complaints was
lower as compared to the March vote day.
It is the eighth time when elections are held in one vote day in the
country. The amendment to the election legislation, which came into force
in August 2005, stipulates that elections of various levels are held on
the second Sunday of March and the second Sunday of October. The first
vote day was on March 12, 2006. It was introduced to relieve voters of the
continuous chain of polls and for economy reasons. But there are
exceptions. Bashkiria held elections on October 4. It celebrates Republic
Day on October 11, and so, the decision was taken to shift the vote day.
-0-pan