Ivorians flock to polls in landmark election

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Ivorians flocked to the polls in the country's first presidential election in a decade on Sunday, aiming to end years of political turmoil in the divided former West African powerhouse.

Long lines of voters snaked around polling stations even before they opened in the main city Abidjan and in Bouake, the northern stronghold of former rebel forces, as people openly relished the opportunity to vote.

In some areas in Abidjan, the country's biggest city and home to a third of the nearly six million electorate, polling stations were late in opening and voters complained about a lack of transport but the mood remained buoyant. Polls closed about 5:00 pm (1700 GMT).

Sunday's was the first election in a decade in the world's top cocoa-producing country, where incumbent Laurent Gbagbo, 65, leads a field of 14 candidates.

"There has not been an election since 2000 and we really have to have a change because Ivorians are suffering, especially the young," said student Mylene Kouassi, 22.

Gbagbo and his main rivals, ex-president Henri Konan Bedie, 76, and former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, 68, pronounced themselves pleased with the voting.

All three believe they will win, raising fears of unrest when the results come through next week.

"Africans are used to post-election tensions. We are making a first step but we have to cross our fingers for the results to arrive and that everyone accepts the verdict," said Gbagbo supporter Georges Etranny, a well-known author and songwriter.

Gbagbo said in a midday press conference: "I am happy today that this vote is going well." But he warned "the only institution equipped to provide a provisional result is the Independent Electoral Commission."

The Independent Electoral Commission has three days to announce provisional results but aims to do so on Monday, an official told AFP.

Gbagbo, insisting that he would win the poll, told the French newspaper Journal du Dimanche that if there was any violence, it would come from his opponents.

"The violence will come from those who lose. And ... I am not going to lose."

Ouattara said he, for one, would accept the results. "Peace is what this country needs most, on election day as in the days following the elections."

Bedie said the vote was a "relief after the long wait since 2005," the date of the last election.

Bedie is seeking a comeback after being overthrown in a military coup in 1999 that triggered years of turbulence in the former French colony once hailed as an example of stability and an economic miracle.

Gbagbo came to power in a 2000 election from which Bedie and Ouattara were excluded, and survived a coup attempt two years later that escalated into a full-scale civil war in which thousands were killed.

The civil war split the country in two between Gbagbo's government-controlled south and the north held by former New Forces rebels, with UN and French peacekeepers patrolling a buffer zone between them.

In Bouake, the northern 'capital' from which the rebels ruled the northern half of the country since their 2002 revolt, thousands of people lined up outside schoolhouses from early morning to vote. Azita Bamba, a shopkeeper who brought her six children along to the polling station, hoped the election will bring change.

"Here in Bouake we have suffered too much, we live in insecurity, we don't eat well and our brothers aren't able to find work," she said.

Despite occasional outbreaks of deadly violence, a March 2007 peace accord has held and a disarmament programme has meant that areas of the north have gradually returned to government control.

Gbagbo postponed presidential elections six times since the end of his term in 2005 amid rows over rebel disarmament and voter registration.

Thousands of government troops, former rebel fighters, police and UN peacekeepers are deployed to secure the poll.