Russia holds a presidential election on March 4. According to this story, it is likely that stringent ballot access laws will block several leading candidates from the ballot. Although the Russian government has proposed easing ballot access, the bill to do that won’t take effect in time for the 2012 election.
I guess this is the Russian version of “top two”. California and Washington take note: is this the company you want to keep?
Actually the story says that parties that are in parliament – Just Russia, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and Communists along with United Russia (Putin) automatically qualify, and that Prokhorov will probably be the only independent who qualifies.
So that sounds like five candidates, not two.
#2, thank you. I corrected the post.