MOSCOW, September 4 (RIA Novosti) - The pro-presidential United Russia party announced it would hold a pre-election congress in Moscow October 1-2 to approve its campaign program for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Andrei Isayev, a deputy secretary of the party's general council presidium, also said the party would approve its party lists for the elections, set for December 2.
Outspoken nationalist lawmaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky, who leads the Liberal Democratic Party and is a deputy speaker of parliament's lower house, the State Duma, said his party would convene its pre-election congress on September 17.
Deputy editor-in-chief of Russian government daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Timofei Kuznetsov, said the presidential decree on fixing December 2 as the date for Duma elections would be published in the newspaper Wednesday, marking the start of the election campaign.
President Vladimir Putin signed the decree on Sunday.
