MOSCOW (CNN) -- Russian voters will go to the polls on March 26 to decide who should replace Boris Yeltsin as president. Russia's upper house of parliament decided on the election date on Wednesday.

Yeltsin resigned last Friday, six months before the scheduled end of his term. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became acting president and is considered the clear favorite to win the election.

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Correspondent Eileen O'Connor previews the upcoming Russian election. (January 5)
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Russia's future

The Russian constitution mandates that an election be held within three months of the president's resignation. The Federation Council, the upper parliament, approved the date overwhelmingly by a vote of 145 for and one against. There were no abstentions.

The head of Russia's Central Election Commission, Alexander Veshnyakov, said the presidential campaign would be declared open on Thursday. Candidates would have until February 13 to gather the 500,000 signatures required to register.

Putin calls for clean election

Putin, 47, has seen his poll ratings soar, in large part because of his uncompromising stand in the three-month-old military drive against Islamic militants in the breakaway republic of Chechnya. He told reporters he wanted a clean election.

"We must take all necessary measures for the campaign to be conducted exclusively within the boundaries of the law, utterly clean, without any mudslinging, and aimed at one thing -- creating equal conditions for all participants," he said after meeting heads of rival political parties.

He said the elections would stabilize Russia. "This will help the consolidation of society," Putin said.

But some opponents said fair elections are impossible because Putin's supporters own the television channels.

"It would not be equal, not fair elections, and what is the biggest problem in the fairness -- it is the control of the media," said liberal lawmaker Grigory Yavlinsky, who heads the social democratic Yabloko party. Russian wire services said Wednesday that Yavlinsky would announce his candidacy shortly.


Vladimir Putin

Russian presidency a powerful post

The president holds immense power under Russia's constitution: he is head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, controls the government, names most top officials and has the last word in most state affairs. The president can stay in office for two four-year terms.

A candidate must win more than 50 percent of votes to be declared the winner in the first round. If no candidate wins in the first round, the two leading candidates face off in a runoff, held three weeks after the first round.

Opposition parties were caught off guard by Yeltsin's resignation. Exhausted from parliamentary elections two weeks ago, the parties have less than three months to select candidates and put together campaigns before the presidential vote.

Aides say Putin probably won't campaign much but will just perform the duties of acting president.

Extreme nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who has staged fist fights in parliament, is the only other politician to formally announce his candidacy. Former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov and Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov have not announced whether they will run.

Putin said earlier that Yeltsin resigned to give him the best chance of winning the presidency.

"He wanted the presidential campaign to develop according to his wishes, he was helping me," Putin said in a television interview on Tuesday evening. "To put it flatly, he gave me a head start in the current presidential campaign."

Putin said Yeltsin informed him of the move soon after the December 19 parliamentary elections, in which centrists including the Kremlin-backed Unity scored a surprise triumph. The vote was a strong endorsement for Putin, who had backed Unity.

Correspondents Alessio Vinci and Eileen O'Connor and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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CaspianNet: Dagestan Republic
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Chechen Republic Online

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