Russian Regions Holding Elections

(RFE/RL) March 12, 2006 -- Elections are being held in 68 regions of Russia today. They are the first votes to be held under a law approved last year synchronizing election dates.

Voters in 60 regions will vote to select members of local councils, while elections to regional legislatures are being held in the other eight: the Kaliningrad, Kursk, Kirov, Nizhny Novgorod, and Orenburg regions, the Adygeya and Altai republics, and the Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous District.

In Moscow's Medvedkovo district, voters will go to the polls for a single-mandate by-election to pick a replacement for the State Duma seat vacated by Georgy Boos when he gave up his post as deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament, the Duma, for the governorship of Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea.

(ITAR-TASS)