A political party that did not exist in Russia's last election, that offered only the vaguest prescriptions for the country's ills and that did not bother to take part in debates against its rivals appeared to be headed to a resounding victory in yesterday's parliamentary races on the basis of nothing more -- and nothing less -- than the power and popularity of President Vladimir Putin.
The party, United Russia, through a coalition with smaller parties and independent lawmakers loyal to Putin, already controls a slight majority of the 450 seats in Russia's lower house of Parliament, or Duma.
Now United Russia, which is loyal to the Kremlin, is projected to win its own majority outright for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It has overwhelmed the badly diminished Communist Party, which emerged from each of the last two parliamentary elections with the largest single bloc of seats.
Depending on the success of smaller parties, analysts and candidates said, the Kremlin could hold sway over a two-thirds majority, giving Putin the freedom to enact sweeping legislative changes, including, perhaps, some in the constitution itself.
Putin, who officially eschews membership in any party, has made no effort to disguise his support for United Russia.
"If the Duma is capable of functioning, then the president will also be capable of accomplishing much together with the Parliament," Putin said in an interview broadcast on state television networks on Nov. 28, in which he lavishly praised United Russia for rising above "a certain level of populism."
"And if the Duma composition is of a kind that engages in internal squabbles, and the deputies mainly pose before the cameras and say things pleasant for their voters but more or less useless for them," he went on, "then the president will have his hands and feet tied."
In case the point was lost on anyone, state television rebroadcast his remarks on Friday night.
The outcome of yesterday's vote will profoundly influence Russia's course over the next four years. The war in Chechnya, the increasing influence of the security services and the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the country's richest man and a potential political rival, have all raised concerns about Putin's commitment to the country's democratic transition.
With Putin's re-election considered a given in March, yesterday's election could turn his already considerable power into something close to absolute. While Putin has repeatedly outlined his vision of a democratic Russia devoted to free markets, his critics have pointed to a steady erosion of basic freedoms that they say can only accelerate after the parliamentary elections.
"Managed democracy was installed four years ago with the election of Putin," said Andrei Piontovsky, an analyst from the Center for Strategic Studies who is often critical of the Russian president. "Now we are sliding step by step from a managed democracy to an authoritarian state."
United Russia's political juggernaut has provoked dire warnings from the Communists and the country's two liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces. The liberal parties face the possibility of falling short of the 5 percent of votes required to secure a bloc of seats.
Leaders of the Union of Right Forces recently pleaded with voters to turn out or risk the Parliament becoming what Irina Khakamada, the deputy speaker, called "a branch of power subservient to the executive branch."
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