Two Die of Heart Attacks at Russian Polling Stations

Two men died of heart attacks at two 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.

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.

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