Voting began today in Sierra Leone's first elections since the departure of UN peacekeepers 20 months ago, a poll that will test whether the diamond-rich country can transfer power peacefully after years of conflict.
Long lines were visible at most polling stations in the capital, Freetown, where voters queued up with umbrellas under drizzling rain, in some cases hours before voting booths opened.
Vice President Solomon Berewa (69) is the front-runner for the presidency, running against six others for the nation's top post. President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah (75) is barred from running again due to constitutional term limits.
Also running are 54-year-old Ernest Bai Koroma, a businessman leading the main opposition All People's Congress party, and Charles Francis Margai (62) a lawyer and former minister who runs the People's Movement for Democratic Change, which broke away from the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party 15 months ago.
Some 572 candidates are also vying for 112 parliamentary seats.
"I want change and development," said Jaclin Johnson as he waited to cast his ballot at a public school building in Freetown. "If the elections go on peacefully, there will be development."
One of the poorest nations in the world, Sierra Leone has struggled to rebuild after a decade of war and coups ended in 2002. The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said in a recent report that "most of the problems that existed before the war remain" - poverty, bad governance, corruption, massive unemployment and disillusioned youth.
Still, the threat of war erupting anew is remote. About 2.6 million of the nation's five million people are registered to vote.
Tens of thousands of civilians died during the country's long war, which ended after UN and British forces beat back the Revolutionary United Front, whose rebels were infamous for burning parts of Freetown, abducting children into their ranks, and raping and hacking off the limbs of civilians.
Kabbah is credited with keeping the country stable since then. UN peacekeepers - the force once numbered 17,500 and was at its height the largest in the world - withdrew in the final days of 2005, leaving security to a new 9,500-strong police force and 10,000-strong British-trained army.
Agencies