The Country:
The Russian Federation is the largest country in the world, stretching across 11 time zones from the Aleutian Islands, near Alaska, and the Kurile Islands, off Japan, to the Kaliningrad enclave on the Baltic, which was once part of Germany.
The People: Russia's population is 147 million. A fall in population is being recorded annually due to a reduced life expectancy among men and an increasing reluctance among women to have children in the current economic climate. Ethnic Russians constitute the majority of the population but there are more than 100 minority nationalities.
The Power Structures:
Most power is vested in the president, who selects the government members. There are two houses of parliament: The Federation Council or Senate, made up of elected representatives of the regions, and the State Duma.
Tomorrow's Elections:
The State Duma has 450 seats. Half of these will be elected on the party list system and the other half in single-seat constituencies on the first-past-the-post system. Twenty-eight parties and blocs have fielded 3,699 candidates for the 225 list-system seats while 2,300 candidates will run in the single-seat constituencies. Voting will take place at more than 93,000 polling stations.
The vote will be monitored by 3,000 observers. There are four observers from Ireland: Mr Frank Fahey (FF), the Minister of State with responsibility for children at the Department of Health; Mr Michael D. Higgins TD (Lab), Mr Batt O'Keeffe TD (FF) and Senator John Connor (FG).
