The 2007 election were assigned exclusively from party-list proportional representation under a law adopted in 2005 on the initiative of President Vladimir Putin.

(United Russia refused to participate in the debates to receive more time for allowed promotion clips than other parties.)

[6] However, the Electoral Commission decided the Russian Ecological Party "The Greens" would not be able to stand, due to an alleged large number of faked signatures (17%, more than the allowed 5%) in their supporters' lists.

On 1 October 2007, Putin announced he would run first place on the United Russia list and that he might consider becoming Prime Minister after the elections.

[11][12] Observers of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) inspected 30 precinct election commissions in the electoral district of the city of Moscow.

All the parties were provided with some free television and print access, and on-air candidate debates at times appeared informative.

In his acceptance speech, Putin stated that a suggestion by a previous speaker that he become the prime minister after his second term as president ends "is entirely realistic, but it is too soon to talk about this at the moment because at least two conditions would first need to be met.

United Russia declined to participate in any broadcast political debates, but on 1 October approved the program that pledged to continue Putin's policy course."

[20] Opposition parties and some independent observers reported widespread abuses, such as strong bias in the Russian media, ballot stuffing, bribery of voters, and coercion of workers and students to vote for United Russia.

[citation needed] Alexander Kynev, a political analyst with the monitoring organisation Golos, said they "have seen a campaign of unprecedented pressure on the voters."

[27] The Russia's Communist Party said its 300,000 observers identified about 10,000 violations, among them the alleged mass falsification of Duma vote in the Caucasus republic of Dagestan.

[28] Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov called a news conference to criticize the official results.

[29] Journalist Grigory Belonuchkin, delegated as an observer by the CPRF in Moscow Oblast, claims that the chairpersons of several polling stations attempted to forge the results while transmitting them to the above committee, rigging vote count in favor of the United Russia.

"[27] The Communist Party, Yabloko, and the Union of Rightist Forces are considering filing a joint complaint with the Russian Supreme Court against the official results of the Duma elections.

[27] Pro-Kremlin Vladimir Zhirinovsky complained of vote-rigging in several regions where his ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party of Russia did worse than in the rest of the country, but blaming only local authorities.

[32] Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, who heads the opposition movement The Other Russia, has dismissed the elections as a "farce" and "rigged from the start".

Kasparov, who spent five days in jail previous week for holding an unauthorised march, said he plans to lay a wreath outside the Central Election Commission to "mourn the death of Russian democracy".

[11] The deputy head of Central Election Commission of Russia, Nikolai Konkin, said "all complaints and allegations will be carefully examined" and pledged to respond in the coming days.

After that Natalia Morar, a citizen of the Republic of Moldova and a permanent resident[34] of Russia, was forbidden to enter the Russian Federation.

[48] Van den Brande said the president and his office had exerted an "overwhelming" influence on the campaign, and also criticized flaws in the secrecy of the vote.

"[25] Finnish parliamentarian Kimmo Kiljunen, the deputy president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and a member of its election monitoring mission in Russia, questioned the accuracy of the reported Chechen election results in an interview to a Russian radio station, saying that it is "impossible that all voters come and vote for one and the same party.

"[49] Commenting on his personal experience of observing about 10 polling stations, he said "my general point is that in principle what happened yesterday were normal elections and in technical sense they worked well."

Graham Watson from the European Parliament said the vote proved that President Vladimir Putin is "a populist with the trappings of a dictator....

Although voters had a choice of 11 parties, the only ones with a chance of making it into Russia's notoriously feckless Duma are either creations of the Kremlin, or loyal to it" and "Many Russians believe that the loss of freedom has been an acceptable price to pay for the stability.

"[54] Norman Stone in The Times guest comment article though admitting that "No doubt there are elements of truth in [the allegations]", wrote "President Putin is popular, and from a Russian perspective, you can easily see why.

[28] Britain's Financial Times observed that "Russia's relations with the West threatened to hit a new low...as Western leaders and institutions denounced parliamentary elections at the weekend as unfair and undemocratic.

But independent observers suggested both sides could seek to contain the damage as Russia heads into a crucial and uncertain period.

"[24] In Brussels, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said through his spokesman that he is concerned "about the conduct of the elections, in particular when it comes to freedom of expression and association," but there was no sign of any change of the alliance's policy towards Moscow.