In a separate article, the Moscow Times announced the start of the authorities’ campaign to install webcams in every polling station throughout the country. “Skeptics say the camera initiative will fall far short as there are other ways to cheat.”

Elections can hardly be free and fair if the government prevents some politicians from taking part. Veteran liberal and presidential aspirant Grigory Yavlinsky found his application for candidacy rejected, wrote the newspaper Vedomosti. The Central Election Commission has disqualified as illegitimate 25.66 percent of the signatures his Yabloko party presented for registration in the upcoming polls. Yabloko will appeal the decision. Billionaire political neophyte Mikhail Prokhorov fared better and won the Commission’s approval to run. Thus, Putin will vie with Prokhorov, Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov, Just Russia’s Sergey Mironov, and Liberal Democratic Party chief Vladimir Zhirinovsky for the Kremlin throne.

Not all Russia’s oppositionists believe that Putin plans to falsify the polls. After meeting with him, Alexei Venediktov, Ekho Moskvy’s editor in chief, declared on air, in comments also carried by the web site Relevant Commentary, that “Putin needs elections that will be recognized as legitimate by all Russians,” adding that “the route to this leads through procedures and dialogue.” He noted, though, that Putin may only be prepared for dialogue with “the non-political opposition, the League of Voters.”