By IANS/RIA Novosti,
Moscow : Over 380,000 police officers, about 30,000 voluntary police helpers and some 31,000 private guards will ensure order in Russia Sunday, when the country elects its new president, Russia’s interior ministry reported ahead of the poll.
A total of 36,500 police officers will be on duty in Moscow, and over 6,000 officers will arrive from other regions to assist their colleagues in the Russian capital as rallies are expected to be held in the city following the elections.
Russians started voting Sunday to elect the country’s president for the fifth time in the nation’s post-Soviet history, the first in which the president will serve a six-year term.
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 Sunday’s vote.
Web cameras have been installed at all 96,000 polling stations with polling booth heads ordered to show every page of their electoral return to the cameras to guarantee transparency for the vote.
Voting in the Kamchatka and Magadan regions started at midnight Saturday/Sunday Moscow time. It will end after residents of Russia’s westernmost Kaliningrad exclave vote at 9.00 p.m. Moscow time Sunday.