Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=3/14/2004

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=RUSSIA / ELECTION (L)

NUMBER=2-314095

BYLINE=LISA MCADAMS

DATELINE=MOSCOW

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to be re-elected easily to a second four-year term in Sunday's presidential election. The only uncertainty of the poll was whether enough voters would turn out to make the election legal. But V-O-A's Lisa McAdams in Moscow reports that early turnout is strong.

TEXT: The chairman of Russia's Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, says the average turnout in the Russian presidential election is already higher in the early hours of voting than it was during last December's sluggish parliamentary poll.

Mr. Veshnyakov says that in the first hours of voting, more of Russia's 109 million registered voters had cast their ballots than had done so the same time during recent parliamentary election.

Officials in Russia's Far East, where polls were the first to open, said people flocked to the polls in the early morning hours. They say the turnout was more than 50 percent by mid-day.

Front-runner Vladimir Putin voted in a suburb of Moscow Sunday morning with his wife, Lyudmila, by his side. In comments broadcast on Russian state television, Mr. Putin said that it was the responsibility of every Russian to do the same.

/// PUTIN ACTUALITY IN RUSSIAN - ESTABLISH & FADE UNDER ///

Mr. Putin said voters must understand that the fate of the nation depends upon their votes.

One Moscow man says he was waiting in line before the polls even opened in order to cast his ballot.

/// VOTER IN RUSSIAN - ESTABLISH & FADE UNDER ///

He says he was voting because he hopes to have a better standard of living in a country where a majority of people still live in poverty.

Voting will stretch over 11 time zones and take nearly 24 hours before it ends late Sunday in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

More than 75 regions will combine presidential elections with regional and local elections. But little change is expected because the leadership in most regions is loyal to the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which swept last year's parliamentary election.

Security is tight, with 300 thousand police officers dispatched throughout the country. In Moscow, an estimated 22 thousand police and troops are patrolling the streets of the capital, where suicide bomb attacks blamed on Chechen separatist rebels have increased in recent months.

Last month, a suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a subway car during the height of early morning rush hour, killing 40 people.

In Chechnya, two bombs exploded near polling stations early Sunday. But a spokesman with the separatist Russian region's emergency situations ministry says no one was injured.

Hundreds of international observers are in Russia to monitor the vote, which the opposition challengers say is skewed in favor of the incumbent president. (Signed)

NEB/LAM/DW/RH