Russia:Parties loyal to the Kremlin are dominating local elections across Russia in a dress rehearsal for the Duma parliamentary contest later this year.
As expected, the largest pro-Kremlin bloc, United Russia, will emerge as the biggest party in 13 of the 14 regions where voting took place at the weekend.
United Russia is estimated to have won about 43 per cent of the vote in the polls for regional governments, in which up to a third of all Russians were eligible to vote.
Critics of the Kremlin complain that the elections are a facade without a clear democratic base. They also point to the huge war chest of the two main parties. A record €40 million was spent overall in the elections, two-thirds of it by the two main parties.
Among the latest dissidents to speak out is the man who came third in the last presidential elections, Sergei Glazyev, who suggests that President Vladimir Putin now exercises more power in his country than the tsars ever enjoyed.
"Even under the tsar, there was not this concentration of power, because at the end of the day the tsar had to take account of the church and today we don't even have that," he said.
Although Mr Glazyev has announced that he is quitting politics completely, his former party, Rodina, is one of three which has merged into a new left of centre grouping, Fair Russia, which performed better than expected despite the loss of some senior figures.
Fair Russia has now emerged as the second largest party, with about 17 per cent of the vote. It came first in one region, Stavropol.
The new bloc is also strongly pro-Kremlin, though in some regions of the country there was fierce local competition between it and United Russia.
There was no voting in Moscow, but in the country's second largest city, St Petersburg, Fair Russia did especially well, coming in behind United Russia.
However, the main liberal party, Yabloko, was struck from the ballot paper in the city, officially because it failed to collect enough signatures to contest the elections, a charge the party rejects. In third and fourth place were the Communist Party and the Liberal Democrats.
Another critical party which espouses western values, the Union of Right Forces, or SPS, was expected to win seats in five of the 14 regions. Some forecasters predict that in the autumn elections it may just squeeze past the 7 per cent threshold across the country to win seats in the Duma.
At the moment, only a handful of opposition critics sit in the Duma, such as Vladimir Ryzhkov, but since his Republican Party, will not poll 7 per cent nationally in the Duma elections, he cannot win re-election as in the past, when a strong personal vote propelled him back to Moscow as a local constituency MP.
Both Mr Ryzhkov and Mr Glazyev claim that President Putin will effectively pick the names of prospective MPs off all the main party lists months before the election takes place and complain about the limited access for critics to mainstream media.
The strong showing for United Russia stems from its clear affiliation to President Putin, who commands up to 80 per cent support in independent polls. Another reason for its success was its use of well-known personalities at local level as regional bosses, suggests one political commentator.
"This gives us a good idea of national party popularity," said Vitally Ivanov from the Political Research Centre.
However, it must also be pointed out that the Duma now has limited authority in Russia, with most power now resting with the president.