SENEGAL:Senegal's five million voters flocked to the polls yesterday in an election President Abdoulaye Wade hopes will keep him at the helm of one of Africa's model democracies.
The octogenarian leader, in power since 2000, has promised his supporters he will be re-elected by winning the first poll outright. But his 14 challengers have vowed to dispute a Wade first-round victory, claiming the 50 per cent or more needed would be impossible to achieve without fraud.
This has raised fears of possible unrest in one of the rare West African countries not to have experienced a coup or civil war after it gained independence from France in 1960.
Initial results are expected from today. If needed, a second-round run-off will be held in mid-March.
From the dusty towns of north Senegal, on the fringes of the Sahara, to forest-hemmed villages in south Casamance region, where separatists fight a low-intensity war, voters turned out to cast their ballots in schools and public buildings.
In the capital, Dakar, long lines of voters, many dressed in colourful robes, waited patiently in the sun or in the shade of the thick-trunked baobab trees that dot Senegal's landscape.
Opponents of the president said they feared his Senegalese Democratic Party, through its control of the security forces and state institutions, would try to rig the polls to give the incumbent a first-round win.
The campaign of Socialist Party candidate Ousmane Tanor Dieng said it had "credible information . . . of a planned strategy of fraud".
The controversy clearly worried voters too in this predominantly Muslim country of nearly 12 million people, who live mostly from farming and fishing.
Mr Wade's election in 2000 ended four decades of Socialist rule. An economic liberal, he argues he has boosted Senegal's reputation as a stable democracy in a troubled region.
His campaign has included ambitious job-creation projects to build highways, five-star hotels, railways and airports in the country in an effort to stop an exodus of desperate young migrants who have tried to leave for Europe in recent years. Campaigning has largely been peaceful.