Putin appeals for voting

President Vladimir Putin appealed to Russians on Thursday to vote in a weekend presidential election amid fears that a low turnout could invalidate the poll.
"Only your support can give the future president of Russia confidence in his abilities," Putin said in a statement released by the Kremlin ahead of Sunday's presidential election.
Putin is seen as the overwhelming front-runner, but he needs 50 percent of eligible voters to turn out for the ballot to be declared valid.
"Elections are one of the most important achievements of democracy," Putin said. "And the results of these elections will have a direct influence on Russia's development."
"The vote of each of us has an enormous importance," he said. "Participating in elections is a unique right to influence events in one's fatherland."
Although five people are challenging Putin for the presidency, none has any chance of winning - the Russian leader's approval rating hovers around 80 percent, while that of his nearest rival wallows in the single digits.
Amid fears that many Russians will stay home on March 14 with the election's results as predictable as a Soviet poll, authorities have concentrated their efforts on getting voters out to the ballot box.
The three national television channels have been running ads for weeks, telling people that it is their patriotic duty to come out and vote.
Regional officials have also been trying to drum up interest in the election, and their methods have sometimes raised protests.
"We have learned that every governor has received orders to make sure that turnout was registered at between 70 and 75 percent," Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov told a press conference on Thursday.
In the Far East city of Khabarovsk, reports appeared several weeks ago that city hospitals would admit only those patients with permission to vote from their sickbed rather than at their local polling station ahead of the election.
The move raised howls of protest, and on Wednesday, Russia's new Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov decried the measure.
"We have to take measures against administrative over-the-top measures," he said in televised comments during a meeting with election officials.
"Such measures discredit the government and are not acceptable," he said.
The Russian Far East is of particular concern, since voter turnout in the last national election, the December parliamentary poll, was less than 50 percent.
Regional officials have worked hard to rally interest in Sunday's vote. A technical university in Vladivostok shifted classes to Sunday to force students to come to school on election day and vote in the college's polling station.
In a less coercive method, a raffle has been giving students who vote in the major Pacific port city a chance to win a three-day trip to China.