This report contains background information and issues of broadband internet access.

This report details the information related to concerns over financing federal elections campaigning, It also discusses Campaign finance practices, proposals on enduring issues, and closing efforts to close perceived loopholes.

Vladimir Putin won reelection as Russian President in March 2004, in an exercise in “managed democracy” in which he took 71% of the vote and faced no serious competition. The pro-Putin Unified Russia party similarly swept the parliamentary election in December 2003 and controls more than two-thirds of the seats in the Duma. Also in March, Putin replaced long-serving Premier Kasyanov with a little-known bureaucrat, Mikhail Fradkov, indicating Putin’s intent to take the reins of government even more completely into his own hands. Putin’s twin priorities remain to revive the economy and strengthen the state. He has brought TV and radio under tight state control and virtually eliminated effective political opposition. Federal forces have suppressed large-scale military resistance in Chechnya but face the prospect of prolonged guerilla warfare and terrorist-style attacks.