The President is elected for a term of six years by the citizens of the Russian Federation on the basis of general, equal and direct vote by a secret ballot. No one may hold the office of President for more than two terms in succession; still, being a president for more than two times total is legally possible. A candidate for the President of the Russian Federation can be nominated by a political party (or electoral block) or by the candidate personally. In the later case the candidate must have an initiative group of 500 supporters. An electoral block or an initiative voters’ group that has nominated a candidate for the office of the President must collect no less than 300,000 voters’ signatures in support of the candidate, with no more than 7,500 signatures falling on one subject of the Russian Federation. (A candidate nominated by a political party that is represented in the Parliament does not need to collect signatures). Political parties not represented in Parliament will have to collect only 100,000 signatures in support of their candidates, and independent candidates will have to provide 300,000 such signatures.

Russian law restricts the amount of candidates’ expenditures for the election campaign. At present no more than RUR 400 million (around £3.9 million), or RUR 500 million (around £4.9 million) in the case of a two-round election, can be spent. A candidate cannot accept money for financing his or her campaign from foreign or international organisations or individuals, persons without citizenship, minors, domestic companies with foreign shareholders, charities and State or municipal bodies. A candidate who receives more than one half of the votes is considered elected. If no candidate is elected in the first round, the Central Election Commission sets the second round of election for the two candidates who received the greatest number of votes. A candidate who received the greater number of voters in the second round as compared with the number of votes cast for another candidate is considered elected, provided that the number of votes cast for this candidate is greater than the number of votes cast against all candidates.

The Federal Assembly, the Parliament of the Russian Federation, is the supreme legislative body of the Russian Federation. The Federal Assembly consists of two chambers: the Federation Council and the State Duma. The State Duma is elected for a term of four years. It consists of 450 deputies. From 2007 all deputies are elected in proportion to the number of votes cast for the lists of candidates nominated by political parties. The Federation Council consists of two representatives from each subject of the Federation, one from the representative and one from the executive bodies of the State authority.

Deputies to the Federation Council and deputies to the State Duma possess immunity throughout their term in office. A deputy may not be detained, arrested or searched except when detained in the act of perpetrating a crime, and may not be subject to personal search except when such search is authorised by law to ensure safety of other people. The question of stripping a deputy of immunity is decided on the recommendation of the Prosecutor-General of the Russian Federation by the corresponding chamber of the Federal Assembly.

The Government consists of the Chairman of the Government, the Deputy Chairman of the Government and federal ministers. The Chairman is appointed by the President with consent of the State Duma. If the State Duma thrice rejects candidates for the Chairman of the Government nominated by the President, the President appoints a Chairman of the Government, dissolves the State Duma and calls a new election.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation is a single centralised system in which lower prosecutors are subordinated to higher prosecutors and the Prosecutor-General. The Prosecutor-General is appointed to the post and relieved from it by the Federation Council on nomination by the President. Prosecutors are appointed by the Prosecutor-General.

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The legislative process in Russia includes three hearings in the State Duma, then approval by the Council of the Federation and the president. The laws adopted by the State Duma are passed to the Council of the Federation for review. A Federal law is considered passed by the Council of the Federation if more than half of its deputies vote for it or if within 14 days it has not been considered. In the event that the State Duma disagrees with the decision of the Federation Council, a federal law is considered adopted if, after a second vote, at least two-thirds of the total number of deputies to the State Duma vote for it. Then, however, laws must be considered by the Council of the Federation. These are laws that deal with the issues of: the federal budget; federal taxes and duties; financial, monetary, credit and customs regulations and money transmission; the ratification and withdrawal from international treaties; the status and protection of the state border; and issues of war and peace.

The adopted Federal law is sent to the president. If the President rejects a Federal law the State Duma and the Federation Council must again consider the law. If, during the second hearings, the Federal law is approved in its earlier draft by a majority of not less than two-thirds of the total number of deputies of the Council of the Federation and the State Duma, it must be signed by the President.

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Russia is a Federation with capital in Moscow (population – approximately 12,678,000). It used to consist of 87 Subjects of the Federation, but the number was reduced to 83 before the accession of Crimea. Currently there are 46 Oblasts, 22 Republics, 4 Autonomous Okrugs, 9 Krais, 3 Federal cities, and 1 Autonomous Oblast. These Subjects of the Federation (Regions) are deemed to have equal political rights but they are not equal in area, population or economic development.

They are (administrative divisions have the same names as their administrative centres, exceptions have the administrative centre name following in parentheses):

Oblasts:

Amur (capital – Blagoveshchensk), Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Chelyabinsk, Chita, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Kemerovo, Kirov, Kostroma, Kurgan, Kursk, Leningrad, Lipetsk, Magadan, Moscow, Murmansk, Nizhniy Novgorod, Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Orenburg, Orel, Penza, Pskov, Rostov, Ryazan, Sakhalin (capital – Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), Samara, Saratov, Smolensk, Sverdlovsk (capital – Yekaterinburg), Tambov, Tomsk, Tula, Tver, Tyumen, Ulyanovsk, Vladimir, Volgograd, Vologda, Voronezh, Yaroslavl;

Republics:

Adygeya (capital – Maykop), Altay (capital – Gorno-Altaysk), Bashkortostan (capital – Ufa), Buryatiya (capital – Ulan-Ude), Chechnya (capital – Groznyy), Chuvashiya (capital – Cheboksary), Crimea (capital – Simferopol), Dagestan (capital – Makhachkala), Ingushetiya (capital – Magas), Kabardino-Balkariya (capital – Nalchik), Kalmykiya (capital – Elista), Karachayevo-Cherkesiya (capital – Cherkessk), Kareliya (capital – Petrozavodsk), Khakasiya (capital – Abakan), Komi (capital – Syktyvkar), Mariy-El (capital – Yoshkar-Ola), Mordoviya (capital – Saransk), Sakha [Yakutiya] (capital – Yakutsk), North Ossetia (capital – Vladikavkaz), Tatarstan (capital – Kazan), Tyva (capital – Kyzyl), Udmurtiya (capital – Izhevsk);

Autonomous Okrugs:

Aga Buryat (capital – Aginskoye), Chukotka (capital – Anadyr), Khanty-Mansi, Komi-Permyak (capital – Kudymkar), Nenets (capital – Naryan-Mar), Ust-Orda Buryat (capital – Ust-Ordynskiy) – from January 1, 2008 will be united with Irkutskaya oblast, Yamalo-Nenets (capital – Salekhard);

Krais:

Altay (capital – Barnaul), Kamchatskiy (capital – Petropavlovsk – Kamchatskiy), Khabarovsk, Krasnodar, Krasnoyarsk, Perm, Primorskiy (capital – Vladivostok), Stavropol, Zabaykalsk (capital – Chita);