Among its priorities will be an effort to re-shape the current election law.

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Mr Obama's re-election also safeguards his healthcare reform law, which Mr Romney had pledged to repeal.

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Exit polls make clear that the president won re-election in spite of continued opposition to the law, not because voters supported it.

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Brown, who speaks constantly about this bill in his neck-and-neck race for re-election against consumer advocate Elizabeth Warren, said the whole point of passing the law was to demonstrate that members of Congress weren't held to a different standard.

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Mr Berezovsky helped to pay for Mr Yeltsin's re-election campaign in 1996, befriended Mr Yeltsin's daughter and son-in-law, and had ready access to the Kremlin until the two men fell out stormily in April last year.

ECONOMIST: Russia