ONE OF RUSSIA’S biggest selling newspapers claims it has convinced Paul the Octopus to predict the winner of the 2012 Russian presidential election – despite the candidates not even being finalised yet.

The Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper said it had gotten the management of Sealife in Oberhausen, Germany – where two-year-old Paul is resident – to make Paul pick between the current Russian president and prime minister.

But the newspaper says it has sealed the prediction away and that it will not be revealed until 2012 when the election is set to take place.

It says that Paul was presented with one image of president Dmitry Medvedev, and another of his precedessor and current PM Vladimir Putin, and that he pointed a tentacle at one of the pictures.

Russians are divided as to who they perceive as the more powerful man, with the usual tradition of a single, strong leader being usurped by the presence of the two-term president Putin as the head of the cabinet.

Both politicians have previously said they were considering running in 2012, and the two men – who are both members of the United Russia party – would confer on which would run closer to the election time.

Paul rose to worldwide fame after successfully predicting the outcome of all seven of Germany’s games in the World Cup finals, as well as the result of the final between Spain and the Netherlands.

He was retired from prediction duties after the tournament, however – raising suggestions that the prediction may have been manufactured by the newspaper.

The paper also carries an “interview” with the octopus – which, unsurprisingly, didn’t make for interesting reading.