The elections in Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, started on Sunday. Altogether11 parties are competing in the vote.
The following is a brief introduction of the four leading parties in the elections:
The United Russia
The giant of Russian politics, founded on Dec. 1, 2001, won the Duma elections in December 2003, thus becoming an influential party in parliament. Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the lower house of parliament, is the party's chairman.
It has over 1 million party members, including more than 2,000 legislators at different levels of the country's legislative bodies, 246 State Duma legislators and 87 legislators in the Federation Council, the upper house of parliament.
The party is a steadfast supporter of President Vladimir Putin. It advocates a combination of a powerful state and the respect for people's freedom and human rights, the reform of the country's administrative style, the improvement of the government's efficiency and the transfer of the country's role from a manager to a regulator.
It also proposes a combination of market economy and social justice, and takes the improvement of people's life as the goal of economic reform and development.
On Oct. 1, Putin agreed to head the United Russia party list in the parliamentary elections but refused to join the party as a member.
Communist Party
It was founded in June 1990 as part of the former Soviet Union's communist party. Gennady Zyuganov was elected as the party leader in 1993.
The party suffered a loss of the seats in the State Duma in the parliamentary elections in 2003. It is now Russia's biggest opposition force. It has a registered membership of 184,000, but claims 500,000 by itself, including 47 State Duma legislators.
The party calls for higher pensions and wages and a greater role for the state in the economy.
Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR)
Founded in December 1989 as the first party after the former Soviet Union adopted a multi-party system, the LDPR has a registered membership of 89,000. But it claims 600,000 members, including 36 State Duma legislators.
It is a nationalist party which advocates power concentration and national monopoly of key industries. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, it adopted a pro-Western policy.
Fair Russia
It was founded in October 2006 on the basis of the merger of the center-left Party of Life, the Party of Pensioners and Motherland. In April 2007, the People's Party joined Fair Russia, enhancing the new party's influence in the political arena. Sergei Mironov, speaker of the parliament's upper house, is the chairman of the party.
The party proposes big increases in wages and pensions by dipping into the piggy bank Russia has built from oil revenues.
Source: Xinhua
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