Russians began voting on Sunday in the Kamchatka and Magadan regions in the country’s Far East 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 - vie for the Russian presidency in the March 4 vote.
Putin, who was Russia's president from 2000 to 2008 and has been prime minister since then, has led the race but may be forced into a second round if he gets less than 50 percent of the vote in the first.
The winner in the first round will be inaugurated as president in early May and President Dmitry Medvedev, a junior member of the ruling tandem with Putin, will step down.
Voting in the Kamchatka and Magadan regions started at midnight Saturday/Sunday Moscow time (20:00 GMT Saturday). It will end after residents of Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad exclave vote at 9:00 p.m. Moscow time (5:00 p.m. GMT) on Sunday.
Results of the exit-polls will be announced after voting is finished, and the first preliminary official results are expected to be made public by midnight (20:00 GMT) on Sunday or in the early hours on Monday.
