Russia launches race for Kremlin

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Russia's presidential election campaign will officially begin shortly, with first deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev the clear favourite to win.

President Vladimir Putin has named Mr Medvedev, 42, as his chosen successor. The vote will take place on 2 March.

The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow says Mr Putin's popularity is such that Mr Medvedev, who also runs the state gas giant Gazprom, is almost sure to win.

He is way ahead of his three rivals in the opinion polls.

Mr Medvedev's main responsibility under President Putin has been overseeing Russia's national projects - programmes to fix the faults in the country's infrastructure.

His closest rival is Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov.

But Mr Zyuganov has failed to mount a serious challenge since the mid-1990s.

The veteran nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky is also running - but his tough talk is unlikely to translate into much more than a tenth of the vote, our correspondent says.

Andrei Bogdanov is the fourth and final candidate. He leads Russia's tiny Democratic Party and is only polling around 1%.

Our correspondent says interest is focusing on how much of Mr Putin's popularity Mr Medvedev can inherit at the ballot box - and how much power Mr Putin will retain.

If Mr Medvedev wins, as expected, Mr Putin is poised to become prime minister.