Legislative branch:
bicameral Federal Assembly or Federalnoye Sobraniye consists of an upper house, the Federation Council or Sovet Federatsii (168 seats; as of July 2000, members appointed by the top executive and legislative officials in each of the 84 federal administrative units - oblasts, krays, republics, autonomous okrugs and oblasts, and the federal cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg; serve four-year terms) and a lower house, the State Duma or Gosudarstvennaya Duma (450 seats; as of 2007, all members elected by proportional representation from party lists winning at least 7% of the vote; members elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms)
elections: State Duma - last held 2 December 2007 (next to be held in December 2011)
election results: State Duma - United Russia 64.3%, CPRF 11.5%, LDPR 8.1%, Just Russia 7.7%, other 8.4%; total seats by party - United Russia 315, CPRF 57, LDPR 40, Just Russia 38
Judicial branch:
Constitutional Court; Supreme Court; Supreme Arbitration Court; judges for all courts are appointed for life by the Federation Council on the recommendation of the president
Political parties and leaders:
A Just Russia [Sergey MIRONOV]; Communist Party of the Russian
Federation or CPRF [Gennadiy Andreyevich ZYUGANOV]; Liberal
Democratic Party of Russia or LDPR [Vladimir Volfovich
ZHIRINOVSKIY]; Patriots of Russia [Gennadiy SEMIGIN]; People's Union
[Sergey BABURIN]; Right Cause [Leonid Yakovlevich GOZMAN, Boris
Yuriyevich TITOV, and Georgiy Georgiyevich BOVT] (registration
pending; formed from merger of Union of Right Forces, Democratic
Party of Russia, and Civic Force); United Russia [Vladimir
Vladimirovich PUTIN]; Yabloko Party [Sergey Sergeyevich MITROKHIN]
Political pressure groups and leaders:
All-Russian Confederation of Labor; Baikal Environmental Wave;
Federation of Independent Labor Unions of Russia; Freedom of Choice
Interregional Organization of Automobilists; Glasnost Defense
Foundation; Golos Association in Defense of Voters' Rights;
Greenpeace Russia; Human Rights Watch (Russian chapter); Institute
for Collective Action; Memorial (human rights group); Movement
Against Illegal Migration; Pamjat (preservation of historical
monuments and recording of history); Russian Orthodox Church;
Russian-Chechen Friendship Society; SOVA Analytical-Information
Center; Union of the Committees of Soldiers' Mothers; World Wildlife
Fund (Russian chapter)