United Russia, the ruling party led by former president and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, is battling its lowest-ever poll numbers heading into a parliamentary election on Sunday.<br /><br />Recent public events have echoed the polls: A party deputy was recently<br />heckled at a music concert, and Putin himself was booed at a boxing match.<br /><br />But many party members are not yet ready to say the winds are changing. Dmitry Polikanov, a member of parliament, told Al Jazeera he believed the party would win 56 to 58 per cent of the vote.<br /><br />The party has also bent campaign rules to boost its support, running a huge advertising scheme that appears nearly identical to state-run posters urging citizens to vote.<br /><br />Meanwhile, opposition figures lamenting Russia's sense of malaise and its "ruined" industry and agriculture await a changing of the guard.<br /><br />Al Jazeera's Robin Forestier-Walker reports from Moscow.
