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Dmitry Medvedev, President Vladimir Putin's loyal protégé, scored a massive victory in Russia's presidential election, but the real question is how much power the 42-year-old lawyer can wield with Mr. Putin still a player on the political landscape.

Mr. Medvedev represents a new generation of post-Soviet politicians, but unlike Mr. Putin, a former KGB spy, he has no independent power base, leading to suggestions that he might simply become a puppet leader with Mr. Putin wielding real control. There is no precedent in Russian history for two leaders sharing power.

Despite Russia's oil-fuelled economic growth, serious social and economic issues undermine its future stability. Analysts say there will be enormous expectations on Mr. Medvedev to address the problems of widespread poverty, high inflation, poor public health care and lack of infrastructure. If he doesn't succeed, many believe Mr. Putin will step in and take the upper hand.

"One of the things [Mr. Medvedev] is going to find most difficult is managing expectations," said Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, a political scientist at Stanford University.

"He's got to show some results. Putin is a tough act to follow. If he doesn't do as well … if he isn't successful attacking these lingering social problems … then it makes Putin look even better and creates the opportunity for him to step back in.

"It will be really interesting to see who will go to the G8 meeting [this summer in Tokyo]. Putin could make the reasonable argument that it should be him because [as prime minister] he's controlling the economic policy."

Mr. Medvedev said the president, not the prime minister, would direct foreign policy and that its main theme would be to defend Russian interests through all legal means.

Poll results showed Mr. Medvedev winning 70 per cent of the vote.

His win marked the end of a dull campaign; the outcome was cemented last December when Mr. Putin picked Mr. Medvedev as his successor. Mr. Medvedev, in turn, asked his mentor to stay on in power as prime minister.

Last night, Communist Leader and runner-up, Gennady Zyuganov, called the ballot "cynical" and said he planned to go to court over some violations.

During the campaign, Russia's state-owned television stations devoted large portions of their nightly newscasts to Mr. Medvedev, dutifully noting his youthful interests such as Internet blogging and a love of rock music. The three other candidates — Mr. Zyuganov, nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Andrei Bogdanov, who is widely viewed as a Kremlin-backed candidate — were given scant air time.

Polls showed Mr. Zyuganov took 17.9 per cent of the vote, Mr. Zhirinovsky won 9.4 and Mr. Bogdanov won 1.2 per cent.

Mr. Medvedev refused to participate in debates and scarcely campaigned at all.

Some analysts believe Mr. Putin, who was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, still has the upper hand. Formally, he will step down in May when Mr. Medvedev is sworn in as the new president, Russia's third since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. But Mr. Putin's personal popularity is enormous and many Russians believe he single-handedly rescued the country from the brink of economic collapse.

One potential candidate, Mikhail Kasyanov, a former prime minister, was barred from running after Russia's electoral commission ruled that thousands of support pledges on his candidate's application were fraudulent.

Yesterday, Mr. Kasyanov stood in Red Square criticizing the vote as a manipulated "transfer of power.

"There was no choice. Without choice, it's not an election," he said, predicting a low voter turnout. "People understand that they've lost their democratic freedoms."

Among the most controversial parts of the campaign were the government's aggressive exhortations to get out and vote. There were also allegations that employers were forcing employees to cast ballots.

In Murmansk, north of St. Petersburg, teachers told their pupils to write an essay on whether their parents planned to vote, according to Russian news services. And some Moscow school teachers were told they would get two extra vacation days if they persuaded their students' parents to vote.

Lottery tickets were handed out at Murmansk polling stations, giving voters the chance to win free vacuum cleaners, café vouchers and a trip to the local banya or bathhouse.

While Mr. Medvedev's victory was certain, there were pockets of protest against the one-sided campaign, mainly on the Internet. Many Russians are avid bloggers and on the Russian equivalent of Facebook, thousands of members joined anti-Medvedev discussion groups.

Chess champion Garry Kasparov, a vocal Kremlin critic, described the election as a "farce."

Mr. Kasparov and a handful of mostly young supporters showed up at Red Square yesterday afternoon where they were followed by more than two dozen riot police. The group was denied access to the public square and four of his supporters were detained after refusing an order to disperse.

"Russian citizens are being forced to take part in a farce which is called an election, but is actually all Kremlin intrigue," Mr. Kasparov told journalists. He said he plans to hold another protest today in St. Petersburg.

A small group of Western observers covering the election expressed concerns at voting irregularities and the overall conduct of the campaign. The 23 parliamentarians from the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly are the only Western observation team after two of the three main election watchdogs pulled out.

Independent Russian election watchdog Golos said its observers had foiled attempts to stuff ballot boxes in polling stations in the Moscow region before voting commenced. The non-governmental body said its 2,000 observers had uncovered other examples of electoral fraud across the country.

"The picture is very grim," said Lilia Shibanova, the watchdog's general director. "It's clear that in the regions where turnout is impossibly high, upwards of 90 per cent, the proportion of pro-Medvedev votes are also impossibly high."

With reports from Reuters and Nadia Popova