国际英语新闻：Russia gears up for presidential election

MOSCOW -- With Russia's upcoming presidential elections only one month away, Russia is gearing up for the elections and has invited some 350 international observers for the March 2 presidential poll.

"There will be no restrictions for any international monitoring commission, as long as it acts in accordance with Russian law," Moscow's Central Election Commission (CEC) head Vladimir Churov told a press conference here on Monday.

Those observers will come from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and some other organizations, Churov said.

One of the invitations is for Christian Strohal, head of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, he added.

There will be more than 96,000 polling stations in the March 2 voting day, including 363 overseas ones, Churov said, predicting that the voting turnout will exceed 60 percent.

On the rejection of former Premier Mikhail Kasyanov's candidate status, Churov said he can still run for president if the Supreme Court supported his complaint.

Kasyanov has ten days ahead "to submit a complaint to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. His name will be included in the ballot if the court's decision will differ from that of ours," Churov said.

The CEC denied Kasyanov's application at a Sunday meeting, alleging there are too many invalid signatures among the 2 million that he was required to gather from supporters for registration.

The CEC has stopped receiving application for candidate registration and four registered candidates, including Dmitry Medvedev, nominated by the United Russia party and endorsed by Putin, will run for the country's top job in the March election.

Other candidates include Gennady Zyuganov, nominated by the Communist Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, by the Liberal Democratic Party and Andrei Bogdanov, an independent candidate and leader of the Democratic Party.

Zyuganov, who has reportedly vowed to quit from the race, ruled out the possibility on Monday.

"We are participating in the elections and we are serious about it. We have an opportunity to put up a serious fight for our country," Zyuganov told Moscow-based Echo radio on Monday.

Zyuganov urged Medvedev to accept live TV election debates, though the latter's campaign staff has claimed that he will not participate in joint election campaign appearances on national and regional state television and radio channels.