Khodorkovsky's efforts to influence parliament, particularly in blocking a new law on oil production earlier this year, are widely viewed as a catalyst for the sweeping investigation of alleged tax evasion and fraud that has put him in a Moscow prison.
Khodorkovsky also openly contributed money to two liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces, to try to create a solid bloc of legislators opposed to Putin.
Grigory Yavlinsky, the leader of Yabloko, acknowledged in a recent television interview that the party had included three Yukos executives on its federal list of candidates as a condition of Khodorkovsky's contributions.
Khodorkovsky's many critics have accused him of trying to buy a controlling majority.
The extent of executives' participation in the election is a result of a new law requiring candidates to declare their incomes and employers. If elected, executives are required to resign from their companies, but they can keep their shares and other holdings, and analysts say that many severe their ties to business only nominally.
The Communist Party has found itself on the defensive because of its embrace of business. State-controlled television has featured critical stories of the executives on its ticket.
One of them is Aleksei Kondaurov, who occupies the 13th spot on the Communist Party's federal list. Since half of the parliament's seats are proportioned based on parties' total votes, with the other half chosen by districts, Kondaurov is virtually assured election. He is also an executive of Yukos-Moscow, the oil company's main subsidiary.
It is one measure of the ideological upheaval in Russian politics that he argues that the Communist Party is now the party of business.
"Today's Communist Party does not reject private property," he said. "It does not reject the mechanisms for market development. The Communist Party is for the strengthening of democratic institutions and the development of civil society."
Kondaurov's candidacy and that of other executives have exposed deep divisions within a party still struggling to formulate a post-Soviet message.
Leonid Mayevsky, a communist deputy in the current Parliament, publicly criticized the party at a news conference earlier this month, saying that 28 percent of its candidates were millionaires.
"Is this the party of the people or of the millionaires?" he asked.
He was promptly expelled from the party.
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