The New Year bells rang, and time swiftly arrived at January 1, 2009.
But many people had no mood to celebrate the New Year this year, especially the three candidates busy with the election and the staff in their campaign offices.
The latest poll had come out, showing that the race was still extremely close. All three had support rates in the thirties, with barely any gap between them.
No one could tell who would ultimately win. According to the election rules, no one could be considered victorious unless their support rate exceeded 50%.
If the stalemate continued, this year's election would become quite a drawn-out affair. It would take at least three rounds to determine the winner.
Russia's presidential election system used multiple rounds. Under the rules, if anyone received more than 50% support in the first round, they won immediately and the election ended.
But if no one surpassed 50%, the candidates with the lowest support rates would be eliminated. Only those with support rates above 20% would remain for the second round.
Although Gryzlov, Medvedev, and Rosiana were far ahead in the polls, there were still other candidates in the first round. Their support rates were generally in the single digits, or even lower...
If no one received more than 50% of the votes in the second round, the lower-polling candidates would be eliminated again, leaving only the two candidates with the highest support rates for the final runoff!
Since only two candidates remained, even if their support rates were extremely close, one of them would still receive slightly more votes and become the final winner.
Unless something incredibly coincidental happened, such as the two candidates receiving exactly the same number of votes...
But that was practically impossible. It was simply too difficult for that to happen.