MOSCOW (AP) – Russians voted Sunday in scattered regional ballots marred by complaints that opposition forces are being frozen out of the country’s politics.

Although two mainstream parties and a smattering of smaller ones are on the ballot for legislatures in 14 of Russia’s 86 regions, critics say the appearance of genuine pluralism is only superficial.

Many of the voters who turned out in early morning in St. Petersburg, one of the election regions, expressed dismay that some parties had been barred from the ballot.

The liberal Yabloko party was not allowed on the ballot in Russia’s second city because electoral officials ruled that more than 10 percent of the signatures checked by authorities were invalid. The party says its appeals were thwarted even after people whose signatures were ruled invalid testified to their authenticity.

Sunday’s vote is seen as the opening of a year of elections that promise to be choreographed to ensure a smooth succession of power and enable President Vladimir Putin to keep a hand in the country’s affairs after he steps down in 2008.

Barred by the constitution from seeking a third straight term in March 2008, Putin has strongly hinted he will choose a favored successor and continue to wield influence, and he evidently wants to leave little to chance. The system in place for regional elections, and national parliamentary balloting in December, has been shaped by the Kremlin in ways that critics say have rolled back democracy.

Sunday’s elections come amid more-restrictive electoral legislation, bureaucratic measures that have flummoxed opponents and kept them off some ballots, and a new party that casts itself as the opposition but that critics say is the servant of Putin’s needs.

The new party, called Just Russia, is led by the speaker of parliament’s upper house, Sergei Mironov, who is a Putin loyalist. How much support Just Russia receives in the regional elections could be a test of whether voters see it as a legitimate alternative to United Russia, the party that dominates the national parliament and that is seen as Putin’s handmaiden.

Despite Putin’s personal popularity, United Russia is widely seen as a group of greedy, corrupt politicians. Mironov’s new faction aims to offer a less tainted but still Putin-friendly alternative.

Analysts say the goal is to help ensure the authority of Putin’s chosen successor by broadening the Kremlin’s power base, while also deflecting comparisons to the Soviet-era one-party state by creating the semblance of a two-party system.

Overall turnout in the regional elections could be another telling gauge of whether Russians have faith in their political system or if apathy and dissatisfaction are setting in.

St. Petersburg this month saw one of the largest opposition demonstrations in years in Russia, which was violently dispersed by police. Among the main complaints of the thousands of demonstrators was that beleaguered opposition parties were being blocked from the ballot.

“I got frustrated last week when I saw how police were breaking up the opposition march. I think Russia needs some strong opposition,” said Anna Vyborova, a 33-year-old tour guide voting in St. Petersburg.

To get on the regional ballots, parties had to pay a large registration fee – $3.5 million for the St. Petersburg race – or submit tens of thousands of signatures in each province. That left challengers vulnerable to the whims of authorities, many of them closely linked to United Russia.

The liberal Union of Right Forces was barred from the ballot in four regions: one where, according to party officials, members were given the wrong bank account numbers for paying the registration. Elsewhere, candidates allegedly were squeezed out of the race under threats or promises of jobs.

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Associated Press correspondent Irina Titova in St. Petersburg contributed to this report.