By Adeeb Al-Sayed
MOSCOW, March 5 (KUNA) -- As the date of the presidential election approaches, the eight candidates - representing different spectrums of the Russian political scene - have "upped the ante" appearing in various television shows and segments in a bid to secure votes and people's approval.
Held in two rounds, on March 18 and April 18, the candidates will try their best to lure voters who seem less enthusiastic with some polls suggesting that around 60 percent of Russian citizens would cast their vote in favor of current President Vladimir Putin.
Putin is partaking in this race as an independent candidate after leaving the United Russia party.
A poll by the All Russia Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) suggested that the current leader of Russia might win around 69 percent of the votes.
On the other hand, the Communist Party of Russia has "ticked off" most of their allies when they announced that Pavel Grudinin, a pro-capitalist and a billionaire, will run as the party's candidate.
Crudinin is expected to win around seven percent of the votes according to some polls, a low number when compared to the Community Party's 13-to-15 percent at recent parliamentary elections.
Creating his own aura as being the main contender to challenge Putin, the leader of Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR) Vladimir Zhirinovsky claimed to reporters that he had around 30-to-40 percent of the votes while polls predict that he might just win around 5.5 percent of the votes.
Zhirinovsky, who maintains a hardline attitude towards the West and the US, is running for the sixth time since 1991.
Meanwhile, Grigory Yavlinsky - economist and liberal candidate of the Yabloko party - will provide a platform focusing solely on tackling Russia's economic woes.
The candidate, who has around 1.4 of the votes according to polls, would also like to address problems between Russia and the West rather than complicating the situation.
This election will have the Civil Initiative Party, represented by media figure Ksenia Sobchak, partaking in the process with slogans highlighting controversial issues such as withdrawing Russia from Syria and other issues and somehow Sochbak might gain around 0.9 percent of the votes.
The candidate said that she is partaking in the election not to win, but rather, to inform the Russian public on issues of grave concerns.
Other polls suggested that candidates such as the Party of Growth's Boris Titvov, the Communists of Russia's Maxim Suraikin, and the Russian All-People's Union Sergei Baburin would not have much of an impact on the elections with their numbers averaging between 0.1 and 0.4 percent.
On the upcoming elections, Chairperson the Central Election Commission (CEC) Ella Pamfilova said all procedures would be taken to ensure the election will be fair and transparent.
Over a 1,000 international observers will monitor the two-phase election. (end) as.gta