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LUANDA : Angola's first peacetime election Friday was marred by a chaotic start as the ruling party looked set to keep its more than three-decade-long grip on power in Africa's top oil producer.
Most Angolans revelled in the opportunity to vote for the first time since the end of the bloody 27-year civil war in 2002, forming snaking queues outside polling stations and patiently waiting for hours.
"These elections mean a lot because now people are free. During the war people were not free," said Ana Lopes, voting in one of Luanda's ubiquitous poor neighbourhoods.
After a chaotic start at many polling stations, especially in the seaside capital Luanda, things improved as the day progressed.
"We have news that the majority of polling stations are now open and operating," said Angola's poll chief Caetano Sousa in the afternoon, admitting that the much anticipated ballot had a rocky start.
"We have been waiting for 15 years (for this vote) and now we won't have to wait another 15 because elections will happen every four years now," Maria Bernadeth Fransico, a woman in her fifties, said.
The vote is important "for the development of the country," she added.
While Angola's new wealth stems from its vast oil and diamond riches and has fuelled double-digit growth, most of its 17 million people remain mired in poverty, living on less than two dollars a day.
The yawning chasm is evident in Luanda where the overwhelming majority lives in sprawling shantytowns in appalling conditions with no basic amenities in stark contrast to the wild opulence of the rich and powerful.
After initially calling the organisation of the vote "a disaster", the head of the European Union observer mission also said things picked up.
Six years after the end of the war that left at least 500,000 people dead, President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos ' Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) is expected to sweep the poll.
The opposition UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), the ruling party's civil war foe, has branded the election as unfair and accused the MPLA of misusing state funds and resources for campaigning.
It also claimed the vote was "stained."
Despite the confusion in Luanda where over 20 percent of the eight million voters are registered, the event appeared to go more smoothly in the rest of the country.
President dos Santos on Friday said: "It's a very important and historical moment. The most important thing for us is that Angola emerges the winner in this great attempt to consolidate democracy."
Voting in the chic Cidade Alta quarter, dotted with buildings dating back to Portuguese colonial rule, dos Santos, 66, flashed a victory sign and said: "For the present, things are going well."
But opposition leader Isaias Samakuva from UNITA echoed the concerns of the international observers.
"Some of our delegates have received false credentials, or were given wrong addresses of non-existent polling stations. There is a lot of confusion mainly here in Luanda," Samakuva told journalists.
"The situation is unacceptable ... the process will be stained," he said.
Angola held one attempted election in 1992 but UNITA claimed it was fixed, withdrew and new hostilities started.
Ahead of Friday's vote, the opposition UNITA and rights groups complained that the MPLA indiscriminately used state funds to campaign and hogged the media.
The electoral commission said counting would begin as soon as voting ends but it is unclear when the first results will be published.
Officially the electoral commission has 15 days to count the votes. Observers in Angola said the first partial results could come as early as Saturday.
- AFP /ls
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