The single voting day is held in Russia on the second Sunday of September. Citizens elect governors and members of regional legislators, city mayors and city legislatures, as well as members of municipal representational bodies. Besides, additional elections to the State Duma are held in single-seat constituencies, TASS reported.

This year, elections will be held at more than 56,000 polling stations.

The early vote has already begun in the majority of Russian regions on September 11. Due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, a decision has been made to organize the vote on September 11 and 12.

This year, elections will be held in 83 Russian regions out of 85, with the North Caucasus Republic of Kabardino-Balkaria and Russia’s second largest city of St. Petersburg being the only exceptions.

During the 2020 Single Voting Day, heads of 18 Russian regions and five mayors of major cities will be elected.

In total, about 171,000 candidates for various offices are running in the polls. They represent 36 political parties. About 40,000 candidates are self-designated.

The Central Election Commission has taken serious epidemiological precautions at polling stations, similar to those in place during the nationwide vote on constitutional amendments, which took place between June 25 and July 1. Premises of polling stations are being regularly decontaminated. Voters need to undergo a body temperature check when entering a polling station. Personal protection equipment is provided to every voter and member of electoral commissions.

The voting will be monitored by more than 237,000 observers.

MEPs on Tuesday morning backed a motion by 557 votes to 92 that said negotiations should not be allowed to progress to the future relationship between the UK and the European Union unless there is a “major breakthrough.”

The motion says the UK’s approach to the discussing financial issues has “seriously impeded” the talks so far and the European Council should delay its decision on whether there has been “sufficient progress.”

The European Council of the 27 EU member states will decide later this month whether to give a mandate for further negotiations if “sufficient progress” has been made on citizens’ rights, Northern Irish border and the financial settlement, Reuters reported.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told the plenary session: “We cannot talk about the future without any real clarity. The prime minister’s speech in Florence was conciliatory, but speeches are not negotiation positions.”

The Parliament does not have an active role in negotiations and its vote today is not binding. However, it does make it very clear that the EU’s only directly-elected body is unsatisfied with the talks so far, and will be a blow to Prime Minister Theresa May following her key Brexit speech in Florence, which was an attempt to break the deadlock.

The Parliament will vote to either approve or reject the final deal agreed between the EU and the UK at the end of Article 50 negotiations in 2019.

The motion was proposed by the parliament’s Brexit coordinator Guy Verhofstadt, who said: “There is a lack of clarity, there is even disunity [in the British government]. There are oppositions between [Philip] Hammond and [Liam] Fox. There are divisions between [Boris] Johnson and May.

“It is difficult to make sufficient progress. It is difficult to make the steps towards the second phase of the negotiations.”

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told MEPs: “We have not yet achieved sufficient progress to undertake in full confidence the second phase of negotiations.”

Barnier added that there was still “serious divergence” over the financial settlement, making it clear that taxpayers of the remaining 27 EU countries should not have to pay more to facilitate Brexit.

He said: “We will never accept for the 27 to pay what was decided on by 28, it’s as simple as that. The taxpayers of the 27 don’t have to pay for the consequences of the decision that they didn’t take. So, no more, no less.”

Following the fourth round of Brexit talks last week, Barnier said it could be “weeks or even months” before negotiations progressed to discussions of a future relationship.

The chief negotiator inisted that he was not seeking “revenge” or “punishment” for Brexit in talks, and that he had a “great admiration” for the UK.

Barnier also said “we are prepared to speed up and intensify negotiations,” which puts pressure on the government to push talks forward.

Manfred Weber MEP, the chair of the European People’s Party Group said: “Theresa May please don’t put your party first. Put Britain first. Please sack Johnson because we need a clear answer for what is the British position.”

Johnson, the foreign secretary, has come under fire following a series of interventions calling for a hard Brexit and a clean split from the EU, apparently going against government policy.

The prime minister will make her key speech to the Conservative Party conference in Manchester on Wednesday. Verhofstadt said he hoped May would use the speech to provide more “clarity” on the government’s plans for the UK’s withdrawal from the EU.

The poll is also expected to see the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) entering parliament for the first time.

Polls opened at 8am (06:00 GMT) and first projections are expected when the polls close at 6pm, Al Jazeera reported.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged people to go vote.

“Voting is a civic duty. Go and vote!” Steinmeier wrote in an opinion piece published in the Bild am Sonntag Sunday newspaper.

“Every vote counts – your vote counts,” Steinmeier asserted. “People who don’t vote allow others to decide the future of our country.”

Opinion polls suggest Merkel and her party are heading for a clear win, which would gift Merkel a historic fourth term.

Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Berlin Laurence Lee said that Merkel is now regarded as the mother of twenty-first century Germany.

“There is no other European politician who could remotely match her in terms of her longevity, her credibility among her own people,” Lee said.

“It is impossible to imagine a conservative politician or even one from the left in any other European country taking in a million refugees and surviving politically.”

For Germany and the European Union, Lee added, Merkel is the most stabilizing influence that can be imagined.

Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) can hope for a narrow majority with the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), or the environmentalist Greens, or an untried coalition with both.

Alternatively, the CDU will continue its so-called grand coalition of the biggest parties with the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), which has seen its support erode to a historic low over the past decade.

Martin Schulz, the SPD candidate and Merkel’s main contender, is stuck in polls of about 20 percent support, and has been unable to make any headway against the CDU.

The AfD is expected to take at least 60 parliamentary seats in the election, after having narrowly failed to clear the 5 percent hurdle to enter parliament in 2013.

It would be the first time in 60 years that a far-right party be represented in the Bundestag.

AfD has been saying it will press for Merkel to be “severely punished” for opening the door to refugees and migrants, and attacked Islam by saying it “does not belong in Germany”.

Some 61.5 million people are eligible to vote in Germany. Turnout is expected to be higher than the 71.5 percent of voters who turned up at the polls at the last election four years ago.