December 4th will see the next elections to the Lower House of the Russian Parliament. A total of seven parties are in the running, United Russia, the Communists, the Liberal Democrats, A Just Russia, Yabloko, The Right Cause and Patriots of Russia. The Central Election Commission has already checked the lists of candidates from them, without discovering a single flaw.

As current Duma seat holders, the four former parties will have their candidates registered automatically. Each of the three latter parties will have to submit at least 150 thousand signatures in its support before its candidates can win registration. Fortunately, this is 50 thousand less than was required four years ago

The opposition outside the mainstream is in disarray.

The popular anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny, for instance, advises government opponents to vote for any party except Putin’s United Russia. The leader of the Solidarity group, world chess ex-champion Garry Kasparov advocates a boycott tactic:

"My boycott is not of the couch potato nature. On the contrary, it is a deliberate active stance to stonewall the authorities in every possible aspect."

Analyst Viacheslav Nikonov expects big gains by the Communists and the Liberal Democrats:

"Buoyed by social protest and widespread tiredness of United Russia, the Communists are quite likely to strengthen their Duma representation, let alone just making it to the Lower House."

"The Liberal Democrats are also doing well, and their presence in the next Duma is assured. The support figures of the other four parties are under 4 percent, while the constitutional threshold for winning seats is 7 percent. The sickest lame duck in the quartet is The Right Cause, badly crippled by the political demise of its erstwhile leader Mikhail Prokhorov. A Duma landscape is on the horizon in which only three parties hold seats."