Oct 30, 2008, 16:06 GMT
Lusaka - Voting is underway in the southern African country of Zambia to choose a successor to deceased ex-president Levy Mwanawasa, in what is being billed the tightest presidential contest since independence from Britain 44 years ago.
The election is a two-horse affair between acting president Rupiah Banda and opposition leader, Michael Sata, although two other candidates are also running.
Voting got underway from 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) at over 6,456 polling stations across the copper-rich country, and at a slower pace in the capital Lusaka than in past elections.
Christian Voice radio reported that turnout in the morning was also down in most rural areas, but that voting was brisk in the Copperbelt region, the mining heartland.
At a school in the low-income Garden Compound district of Lusaka, Chisomo Tembo, a timber trader who has just voted for Sata, said the country needed change after almost 17 years under Banda's ruling Movement for Multi Party Democracy (MMD).
'It is like Zambia has been turned into a one-party state and democracy no longer prevails,' Tembo said.
Police have been deployed at all polling stations amid fears of a repeat of the violence that gripped the 2006 election. Sata's initial refusal to accept defeat at the hands of Mwanawasa that year sparked days of rioting that ended only when the army was deployed.
Zambia's army commander Isaac Chisuzi warned this week the army would brook no violence this time either after Sata, who led the vote in two of three opinion polls, threatened to again reject the outcome of the election if he suspected rigging in favour of the ruling party.
Before the vote he had urged his supporters to take blankets with them and prepare to sleep outside the polling stations to keep a watch for rigging during the vote count.
Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) spokesman Chris Akufuna said counting would begin directly after voting ended at 6 pm (1600 GMT). The ECZ has said the first results could be in by Friday.
Patriotic Front leader Sata, nicknamed King Cobra for his attacking political style, has promised to cut taxes and give Zambians a greater stake in mining and parastatals.
Banda has campaigned on a theme of continuity with the popular Mwanawasa's prudent economic policies.
The election takes place against the backdrop of plummeting prices for copper - Zambia is Africa's biggest producer of the metal - as slower global growth depresses demand.
Despite its resource wealth, Zambia is ranked among the poorest countries in the world, where about 65 per cent of people live on less than a dollar a day.
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