This video is an eloquent comment on the Russian presidential election. It is a parody of a televised debate, in this case featuring two of the candidates, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov and nationalist firebrand Vladimir Zhirinovsky. The spoof moderator says the debate is going out on air at 5:00 a.m. and when the camera cuts to the two debaters, they are both asleep. The moderator wakes them up, but when he asks them to talk about their policies they start reminiscing about 1996, the last time Russia had a hotly-contested presidential election. ”Yes, those were the days,” says the Zyuganov puppet. “And what do we have now?” With that, they get up and leave the studio.

The video is a bit of fun but in many ways it rings true.  This election really is short on excitement. Dmitry Medvedev, the first deputy prime minister President Vladimir Putin has anointed as his favoured successor, is overwhelming favourite to win on March 2. Opinion polls put Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky, his nearest rivals, nearly 50 percentage points behind him. Medvedev has declined to take part in televised debates, saying he could not fit them into his schedule of visits to the provinces. He has not been challenged in earnest on his manifesto. He has given no press conferences, only chats with groups of deferential provincial journalists. The only one-on-one interview he has given was paid for by his campaign.

So why is the election like this?  The Kremlin’s critics say it is because the campaign is slanted in Medvedev’s favour. They say he gets the lion’s share of air-time on national television, and Mikhail Kasyanov, the opposition candidate who could have injected some edge into the election — though he had no chance of winning — was disqualified.

But there is another factor at play that no one should lose sight of. Russians, it seems, want Dmitry Medvedev to be their next president. It’s not surprising really. Russia is enjoying the biggest economic boom in a generation. At weekends, the out-of-town hypermarkets that have sprung up under Putin’s rule are groaning with people buying washing machines, dishwashers and stereo systems. Rightly or wrongly, many Russians associate their growing disposable income with Putin. He has said he is prepared to stay on as prime minister if Medvedev is elected president. So people calculate that if they vote for Medvedev, the good times will keep rolling.

There is little doubt the election is one-sided. Western governments and election observers could well conclude it is unfair. But that does not necessarily mean the result will not reflect what Russian voters want.