Dmitry Medvedev, endorsed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, is an overwhelming favorite to win Sunday's presidential election.
The following is a brief profile of the most hopeful:
Dmitry Medvedev, a 42-year-old former law professor, is currently the first deputy prime minister and is widely seen as the most hopeful successor to Putin.
He was nominated by United Russia, the biggest party in the parliament.
Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987 and received a doctor degree in private law from the same university in 1990.
In November 1999, he was appointed deputy head of Russia's government administration.
In 2000, he became chairman of the board of directors at the state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom, and has served as deputy head of the presidential administration since the same year.
From 2001 to 2003, besides his day to day responsibilities in the Kremlin staff supporting the president's activities, he was assigned to special projects. This included heading the commission which oversaw the drafting and enactment of framework legislation on the reform of the civil service and looking at ways to best overhaul the judicial system.
In 2003, under the order of Putin, he was appointed head of the presidential administration.
Since November 2005, Medvedev has been serving as the first deputy prime minister in charge of the national priority projects in demography, education, health care, agriculture, and housing construction.
In speeches in 2008, Medvedev has pledged to follow Putin's set political strategies and further Russia's economic growth and prosperity.
Medvedev spoke out for economic freedoms, human rights and freedom of expression and has called for reforms of the judicial system and a real separation of that system from the executive andlegislative branches.
Putin announced that Medvedev was his favored candidate for president on Dec. 10 last year. The next day Medvedev said he wanted Putin to become his prime minister. Latest opinion poll shows Medvedev enjoys the support of 72.9 percent of voters.
Medvedev is married and has a 12-year-old son.
Three other candidates will take part in the upcoming election, including Gennady Zyuganov, nominated by the Communist Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky by the Liberal Democratic Party and Andrei Bogdanov, an independent candidate and leader of the Democratic Party.
Source: Xinhua
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