MOSCOW (AFP) -- Polls opened in Russia's capital Moscow Sunday in a parliamentary election that could squeeze out the liberal opposition and hand President Vladimir Putin's United Russia Party a decisive majority.

Polling stations in the country's economic heart and largest city opened at 08:00 A.M. (0500 GMT) in an election that will decide all 450 seats of the State Duma, the Lower House of Parliament.

The Moscow polls opened nine hours after voting began in the easternmost of Russia's 11 time zones in the Far East.

Security was tight throughout the country after a massive suicide bomb blamed on Chechen rebels, which killed at least 41 people and injured more than 170 others, went off near the war-torn republic two days before voting day.

The poll's main suspense is whether United Russia and its allies will get a two-thirds majority, allowing Putin to change the constitution so he could remain in power beyond 2008, at the end of his likely second term.

The other uncertainty is whether two small liberal parties, Yabloko and the Union of Right Forces (SPS), will make it past the crucial five-percent barrier to gain a guaranteed share of seats in the Duma.