Five people died of heart attacks at separate polling stations during the presidential elections in Russia on Sunday, police said on Sunday.
One man, a 65-year old member of a local election commission in Zelenograd (northern Moscow), went for a cigarette break a few minutes before the polling station was supposed to open for voting, when he suffered a massive heart attack and died before the ambulance arrived.
Another man, who was 53-year old and had been discharged from hospital two days ago, also died from a heart attack after getting his ballot paper at a polling station in Omsk, West Siberia.
A 77-year old pensioner died near a polling station in eastern Moscow.
A 59-year old former school principal died in the village of Domna (Zabaikalsky Territory) as she arrived at a polling station.
A similar tragedy occurred in Volgograd where a 72-year old woman died five meters away from her polling station.
Russians are voting on Sunday to elect a president for the fifth time in the nation’s post-Soviet history, the first in which the president will serve a six-year term, and not four years as previously.
Five candidates, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, nationalist Liberal Democratic Party head Vladimir Zhirinovsky, A Just Russia Party leader Sergei Mironov and the only independent, billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, are running in the March 4 vote.
