Lawmakers on Friday overwhelmingly approved President Vladimir Putin's plan to reinforce central control over Russia by replacing popular election of regional leaders with a Kremlin-steered selection process.
The scheme, unveiled by Putin following a string of major attacks in Russia earlier this year and billed as a measure to combat terrorism, sailed easily through the State Duma after two hours of debate in a vote of 365 to 64.
The pro-Putin United Russia party holds an absolute majority in the Duma and its members vote strictly according to party consensus, so the outcome of Friday's vote surprised no one.
Under the plan, which must still pass two more votes in the Duma, regional officials are to be elected by corresponding regional parliaments voting on candidates first selected by the Kremlin and submitted by the president.
In proposing the measure 10 days after the Beslan school hostage tragedy, Putin argued that the Kremlin needed more direct power in running the world's largest country to enhance national cohesion and thus national security.
Last week, Putin insisted that the plan was constitutional, would be carried out in a transparent manner and in any case only mirrored similar political practices used in many countries including members of the European Union.
Critics, though apparently limited to a handful of marginalised Russian politicians and several Western governments, have rejected Putin's logic.
"We must preserve the right of our citizens to participate in elections," Nikolai Gonchar, an independent deputy who opposed the measure, commented after the Duma vote.
"Strength will come not through the president controlling the governors but through the governors controlling their regions."
Some regional politicians, most notably the powerful leader of the republic of Tatarstan, a region that already enjoys considerable autonomy from Moscow, have expressed their unhappiness with at least some aspects of Putin's plan.
The Kremlin though has made clear its desire to see the measure become law by the end of the year and few doubt that this will happen.
At the same time he proposed the change to the system for choosing regional leaders, Putin also called for replacing the current system for electing deputies to the State Duma with a new, strictly proportional scheme.
That measure, a change from the current system under which half the deputies are elected by party lists and the other half as individual candidates, was also pushed by Putin as needed to increase national unity and fight terrorism.
It was expected to be taken up by the Duma in coming weeks.
Prior to the Duma vote Friday, around 200 Putin opponents ranging from communists and nationalists to Western-style liberals joined forces to protest the proposed change to the system for choosing regional executives.
"We've already been deprived of press freedom and judicial independence!" Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal Yabloko Party, told the demonstrators who gathered near the Duma hours ahead of the debate.
"And now they are depriving us of the possibility to choose officials in regions and large cities!"
But Dmitry Rogozin, leader of the nationalist Rodina party, said Putin's critics concerned that the new measures would give the president too much power were missing the point.
"The president's goal is to go from a weak and torn federation to a united and indivisible Russia," Rogozin told deputies prior to the vote.
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