(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Dmitry Medvedev remains the overwhelming favourite in Russia’s presidential election, according to a poll by the Public Opinion Foundation. 75 per cent of decided voters would back the current deputy prime minister in this year’s ballot.

Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky is second with 11 per cent, followed by Communist Party (KPRF) leader Gennady Zyuganov with 10 per cent, former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov of the Russian People’s Democratic Union with two per cent, and Boris Nemtsov of the Union of Right Forces (SPS)—who has since withdrawn from the race—also with two per cent.

Vladimir Putin was elected to a second term as president in March 2004 with 71.31 per cent of all cast ballots. In April 2005, Putin ruled out seeking a new mandate, saying, "I will not change the constitution and in line with the constitution, you cannot run for president three times in a row." The next presidential election in Russia is scheduled for Mar. 2.

Russian voters renewed the State Duma on Dec. 2. United Russia (YR)—whose candidate list was headed by Putin—secured 64.1 per cent of the vote and 315 of the legislature’s 450 seats. Under the country’s recently implemented proportional representation system, only three other political organizations—the KPRF, the LDPR and A Just Russia—elected lawmakers to the lower house.

Last month, Putin endorsed Medvedev as a presidential candidate, and Medvedev said it would be of the "utmost importance" to have Putin as head of government.

On Dec. 12, U.S. state secretary Condoleezza Rice discussed the Russian election, saying, "I would hope that the time will come when Russia is going into a presidential election where there is a realistic chance for a really contested election. And I think that, to me, is the biggest problem with this. Look, somebody saying, ‘I have confidence in this person’, that happens. But I don’t think that people view this election as being contested and that’s too bad."

Polling Data

Which of these presidential candidates would you vote for if the election took place this Sunday?
(Decided Voters)

Source: Public Opinion Foundation
Methodology: Face-to-face interviews with 1,500 Russian adults, conducted on Dec. 23 and Dec. 24, 2007. Margin of error is 3.6 per cent.

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