As polls in 76 of Russia's 83 regions were beginning to close on March 14, Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the Russian parliament and the No. 2 member of the ruling United Russia party (Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is head honcho), opened an evening press conference. It seemed like it should be a grim night for the UR spokesman. The elections were the first since blatant fraud during the Oct. 11 regional vote triggered a major political crisis, causing even the token opposition to walk out of the federal parliament for a week and forcing President Dmitry Medvedev to address the deeply rotten resources-distribution trough that, in Russia, is usually referred to as the "electoral system."
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