As an alternative to gathering 200,000 signatures, they had the option of paying a deposit of just over two million roubles, returnable if the party won at least 3.0 percent of the list vote.

However, if after this procedure the parties winning seats still had less than 50 per cent of the vote, the election was to be deemed invalid.

The early election campaign saw the initial surge in popularity of Fatherland-All Russia bloc, led by the Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and the former Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, which tried to capitalize upon the perceived incapacity of President Boris Yeltsin and the weakness of his administration.

The tide had turned on 9 August 1999 when Yeltsin designated Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister and his eventual successor.

On 24 November, Putin announced that "as a citizen" he will support the recently formed pro-government bloc Interregional Movement "Unity", headed by General Sergei Shoigu, a member of all Russian governments since 1994.