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| Last updated: 2 August 2004 |
| The 2003 Russian State Duma Election (7 Dec. 2003): Observations in Moscow |
| Photographs (C) Derek S. Hutcheson, 2003. |
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| Before the polls: posters on the campaign trail (left & below) |
| At a Central Electoral Commission Press Conference, 5 December 2003. |
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| Polling Day: I begin my trip round some central Moscow polling stations. |
| The voters of central Moscow come to cast their ballots, under the watchful eye of the polling station officials. |
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| As ever, the atmosphere on polling day was festive, with flags and bunting everywhere. |
| I spent most of the day going around with the 'mobile ballot boxes' - taken to elderly and infirm voters in their homes. (In this particular case, we went to about 50 homes over a six-hour period.) Here we pose together in the polling station after the close of polls. |
| 2 a.m. - and the vote count finally gets underway. (The polls closed at 8 p.m., but it took six hours to collate the voter lists.) |
| 8 a.m., Monday morning: after twelve hours locked in the polling station, and twenty-seven hours since we got up on Sunday morning, the result is finally declared. Here I stand in front of the official protocol with one of the electoral commission officials, who's equally delighted with this development. At this stage, 92% of results are in, from as far afield as Murmansk and Kamchatka. Our polling station, one mile from the Kremlin, falls into the other 8%... |