MOSCOW - Opposition presidential candidates Irina Khakamada, Sergey Glazyev and Nikolai Kharitonov have agreed to set up an independent vote counting center during Russia’s presidential elections on March 14, Ms. Khakamada said at a news conference on Thursday.

The alternate information center of the All-Russian project “Our voice” will be located in the Central House of Journalism in Moscow. The project includes joint monitoring of the voting process at polling stations and independent vote counting. It is also expected that a hotline will be set up for reporting voting violations.

The center will start operating at 20:00 Moscow time on March 14. If there is a considerable difference with the results provided by the Central Election Commission, opposition candidates "will file lawsuits", she said.

Ms. Khakamada noted that the independent center had "enough observers" to control the process of vote counting at almost every polling station in Russia.

She said she would personally watch the counting of ballots at a polling station in Moscow, but she did not specify which. "They should know that we may check them at any time," Ms. Khakamada stressed.Elections 2004