The Russian parliament on Friday approved President Vladimir Putin's controversial plan, introduced in the wake of the Beslan school hostage tragedy, to strengthen the Kremlin's control over regional authorities. The bill was approved on its third and final reading by a vote of 358 for and 62 opposed in the powerful lower house of parliament, the State Duma, in which the pro-Putin United Russia party commands a strong majority.
The change to the system of choosing regional leaders was among several political reform proposals put forward by Putin in the aftermath of a wave of major attacks in Russia that he has argued are needed to strengthen the unity of the Russian state.
Under the new law, which must still be signed by Putin to go into effect, regional governors will be elected by regional parliaments voting on one or several candidates first selected by the Kremlin.
Should a regional legislature reject the Kremlin's candidate three times, the president would have the authority to dissolve that legislature.
The new legislation has been denounced both by Russia's liberal and communist opposition who have called it "anti-constitutional" and a violation of voter rights.
"This is a coup d'etat. It is wiping out federalism... the governors should be elected by the people and responsible to it," Irina Khakamada, the only candidate from the liberal opposition to have stood in March's presidential election complained after Friday's vote.
The election of the 88 regional governors by universal direct suffrage had been considered one of the democratic advances in Russia during the presidency of ex-leader Boris Yeltsin.
The law was adopted on Friday just two days before elections in seven of Russia's regions, notably in Ulyanovsk, in the Volga region, in Kamtchatka, in Russia's far east, and in Astrakhan in the south.
"On December 5 the people will elect their governors for the last time," newspaper Vremia Novostei said on Friday.
"From 2005 the president will choose the governors."
The English-language daily, the Moscow Times, said Kremlin candidates were likely to win most of the regional elections on Sunday anyway, as in spite of the election by universal suffrage the Kremlin had influenced the choice for the past few years.
"Many of the governorships are still likely to go to Kremlin approved candidates," it said.
Western governments and Russian rights groups have censured Putin for introducing the series of increasingly authoritarian measures.
But opposition politicians, along with most of the regional leaders, have not been outspoken in their criticism.
Liberal factions have been kicked out of parliament for the first time since the Soviet era and the Communist Party no longer has enough votes to influence legislation and is steadily losing support.
The Duma also adopted on Friday a law increasing to 50,000 from 10,000 the number of members a party has to have in order to register.
Russia has dozens of small parties although most of them fail to make it into parliament.