STAVROPOL, Russia (Reuters) - Vladimir Putin would like to take his election campaign out into the countryside but there is a problem: his party cannot afford the petrol.
"If we could, we would go to every village," he said, sitting on a park bench in the Russian city of Stavropol during his lunch break. "We do not have the money."
There are two Vladimir Putins running in the December 2 election to Russia's parliament. One is the president. The other is a 45-year-old lawyer with Stavropol's municipal water company running for Yabloko, a small opposition party.
On paper, both started the campaign with an equal chance of being elected. In reality, the gulf between the two men -- just like the gulf throughout the country between Putin's United Russia party and its opponents -- is enormous.
Opinion polls point to a huge win for United Russia on election night while its rivals trail far behind.
The president's supporters say there is a simple explanation: voters support him and his party because they like what he has done. Incomes are rising, there is political stability and the country walks tall again on the world stage.
His opponents say the real difference is what in Russia is known as "administrative resource": the Kremlin using its money, its control over national television and its bureaucratic clout to give United Russia an unfair advantage.
"United Russia is, in effect, the ruling party," said Konstantin Khodunkov, Stavropol region secretary of the Communist Party, Russia's strongest opposition force.
"All the local bosses are members of United Russia," he said in his office decorated with portraits of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. "For them, the other parties do not exist.
Igor Dyomin, chief spokesman for United Russia's faction in the national parliament, said many senior officials were party members, but that did not translate into votes for the party.
"Instead of having a discussion about the specific issues, they (opposition parties) start inventing all sorts of myths. The most widespread of these is that we are pushing our interests by using administrative resources," he said.
