As widely expected, the pro-president Vladimir Putin United Russia party won a landslide victory in the early December parliamentary elections, securing an absolute and constitutional majority with more than two-thirds of the votes. In the wake of the crushing election victory, Putin nominated his first deputy prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, chairman of Russian gas monopolist Gazprom, as his preferred candidate for the presidential elections scheduled for March 2008.
The announcement put an end to months of speculation about who would be Putin’s handpicked successor and was warmly greeted by the Russian markets given the widely held perception that Medvedev is a more pro-business candidate than former defence minister Ivan Ivanov, who was also seen as a potential successor.
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