AND then there was one. A mayoral election in the southern Russian city of Sochi today caps one of the dirtiest campaigns in modern Russian history, undermining Kremlin claims of greater democratisation.

The election is more than just another local ballot. Sochi is the venue for the 2014 Winter Olympics and will receive billions of dollars in government money between now and then for the mother of all facelifts.

The prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has given the project his personal imprimatur amid talk of turning the faded Soviet-era holiday resort into Russia's third city after Moscow and St Petersburg.

With so much at stake, the race to choose a new mayor has descended into a one-sided campaign beset by claims that the vote is rigged.

This is despite the warm words of the president, Dmitry Medvedev, who described the vote as "a fully-fledged political battle" that would boost Russia's frail democratic credentials.

In the beginning, there were 26 contenders, a mixture of big hitters, celebrities, and Soviet-era bureaucrats. They included a murder suspect, a porn star, a ballerina, a human rights activist who slept in his car, and an oligarch.

Going into the final vote, just six candidates remain. The rest have either mysteriously revoked their candidacies or been struck off the ballot on a technicality by the local election commission.

The Kremlin-anointed candidate, a podgy career civil servant called Anatoly Pakhomov, has, it seems, a peculiar understanding of campaigning. Nominated by Putin's ruling United Russia Party, he refuses to debate his opponents or to even reveal where his campaign headquarters are located. His aides decline to give details of his schedule, making it impossible to meet him, and Pakhomov seems to balk at being interviewed by anyone bar the most slavish local journalist.

Locals compare him to a ghost. Apart from staged meetings with hand-picked voters that appear on loyal local TV stations, they say he's invisible.

The authorities have also done their utmost to ensure Sochi is not gripped by election fever. There's not a single campaign poster on its palm-lined streets and opposition candidates who have tried to change that have quickly had their posters ripped down. A spokesman for Pakhomov's party claims that people are tired of elections and that posters have a limited impact anyway. What's the point of putting up posters, he says, when they have to be taken down in a few days. "It would just create rubbish."

Local TV and radio stations have also done their bit. They have refused to run any paid campaign adverts and instead covered the run-up according to the Kremlin's playbook. A 20-minute film demolishing the character of the main anti-Kremlin opposition candidate, Boris Nemtsov, has been shown repeatedly.

Nemtsov is a household name in Russia, co-chairman of the opposition Solidarity movement, and a talented and charismatic orator. In the 1990s, he was a deputy prime minister and one of the country's most successful regional governors.

Sensing a threat to their own candidate, the authorities have gone into overdrive to discredit Nemtsov. The head of the local police suggested Nemtsov's supporters were provocateurs planning to cause trouble, while a local journalist who dared film a short interview with him was punched in the face by two men late at night.

Incredibly, local TV also screened a clip claiming to show Nemtsov meeting Korean businessmen. According to the subtitles that accompanied the clip, the businessmen offered Nemtsov a bribe to move the Olympics from Sochi to a South Korean city. If the subtitles are to be believed, Nemtsov appeared to entertain the offer. His aides say the dialogue was doctored and the whole thing is a classic Kremlin provocation.

"This is Goebbels-like propaganda," said Nemtsov. "Putin, who hates democracy, is running the show."

The Communist candidate, a sad- looking man called Yuri Dzagania, says he knows the Kremlin's candidate will win. "It's a farce we're obliged to take part in," he said. "At least it gives us a chance to propagate Communist ideas."

When Dzagania addressed a recent rally of supporters, plain-clothes members of the FSB security service photographed him and every speaker. He and Nemtsov say vote-rigging is already under way. People who work in the state sector, such as teachers, police officers and doctors, are being bussed to polling stations during working hours to cast their vote early. There's enormous pressure to vote for the Kremlin candidate, many of them say.

The way the vote is being conducted appears to deal another blow to the idea that President Medvedev's liberal rhetoric is anything more than just talk. His style has prompted talk of a thaw. Judging by this election, there's still a lot of ice to melt.