President Putin of Russia fired the starting gun yesterday on an election campaign that will end with his departure from the Kremlin.

Campaigning for seats in the Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, began after Rossiiskaya Gazeta, the state newspaper, published the presidential decree setting the elections on December 2.

Pro-Kremlin parties are expected to win a majority of seats in a contest that is being fought under new rules. Individual candidates are barred from standing and voters must choose from different party lists.

United Russia party, which holds 70 per cent of seats in the 450-seat chamber, is predicted to retain an overall majority. Three other parties – A Just Russia, which is pro-Putin, the Communists, hostile to the Kremlin, and the right-wing nationalist Liberal Democrat Party, headed by the eccentric Vladimir Zhirinovsky - are also expected to gain seats. Liberal opposition parties complain that they stand little chance of success because the minimum proportion of the vote required to qualify for seats has been raised from 5 to 7 per cent.

The Duma elections are largely viewed as the curtain-raiser to the presidential election, which will take place on March 2. Mr Putin, 54, is barred from standing for a third term, although he enjoys approval ratings above 80 per cent with voters.

In stark contrast to the United States, where candidates for the November 2008 election have been campaigning for most of the year, none of the main contenders in the Kremlin has even declared an interest in the presidency, only six months before the polls open.

Mr Putin’s endorsement is seen as the critical factor in determining which of them will succeed him. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed last week that the President intended to use his popularity with voters to back a particular candidate.

“The President has the right to say ‘I think this guy is best’ and give him a boost by sharing with him his unimaginable popularity,” Mr Peskov said.

The joint first Deputy Prime Ministers Sergei Ivanov and Dmitri Medvedev remain the front-runners. Mr Ivanov, 54, served with Mr Putin in the KGB and has the backing of the siloviki, the security service and military factions in the Kremlin.

Mr Medvedev, 42 next week, is a former lawyer and academic who worked under Mr Putin in the St Petersburg mayor’s office in the 1990s and is viewed as the standard-bearer of the Kremlin’s liberal wing. He was regarded as the obvious successor when Mr Putin created the post of First Deputy Prime Minister specially for him in 2005, but Mr Ivanov is now regarded as the stronger candidate.

One intriguing possibility is that Russia’s next president may be a woman. The influential Nezavisimaya newspaper suggested that voters were ready to support Valentina Matviyenko, the flamboyant Governor of St Petersburg, as Mr Putin’s successor.

Mrs Matviyenko, 58, is totally loyal to Mr Putin and has denied any intention to stand. Her candidacy would spark speculation that he planned to return in 2012 after she had served a single term as president.

Sergei Naryshkin, 52, a Deputy Prime Minister, is a dark horse contender, who has been handed new responsibilities in recent months by Mr Putin. He, too, is from St Petersburg, worked under Mr Putin, and is said to be a former KGB agent.

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