Voting starts in Russian presidential election

By Michael Stott

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians voted for a new president on Sunday, in an election expected to deliver a big victory to Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin's chosen successor and another blow to Moscow's already tarnished democratic image.

Election officials in the Far Eastern peninsula of Chukotka, the first of this massive country's 11 time zones to cast ballots, said voting began on schedule at 0800 local time (2000 GMT Saturday).

"All 59 regional polling stations opened as planned a few minutes ago," a spokeswoman for the Chukotka regional election commission said by telephone from the regional capital of Anadyr.

Exit polls and first results are due after the last of the 96,300 polling stations closes in the European enclave of Kaliningrad bordering Poland at 2000 (1800 GMT) on Sunday.

Opinion polls have predicted right from the outset a massive victory for Putin's protege, the 42-year-old St. Petersburg lawyer and Kremlin official Dmitry Medvedev, making the campaign a dull affair devoid of political sparring.

The last polls to be published said Medvedev would win 70-80 percent, way ahead of his nearest rival, 63-year-old Communist veteran Gennady Zyuganov on 10-16 percent. Turnout is seen around 70 percent, though critics say it is inflated by factory managers and state officials who pressure employees to vote.

Putin, who must step down in May because of term limits, is by far Russia's most popular politician after presiding over an eight-year economic boom and a dramatic revival in Russian power and influence overseas.

His endorsement in December of Medvedev, a colleague for almost 20 years, instantly catapulted the low-profile bureaucrat into the leading position in the polls.