Voting began on Tuesday morning in the vast north-west African desert state of Niger, where nearly half the population of 11-million is being called on to elect a president.
Polling stations opened at 8am, and Interior Minister Abouba Albade said half an hour later that voting was going ahead ”without incident”.
Albade was speaking at a polling station in the capital, Niamey, shortly after incumbent President Mamadou Tandja cast his vote there.
Tandja (66) is seeking a second five-year term, and is largely expected to win the election despite opposition from five rivals.
Tandja won almost 60% of the vote in a tightly contested election in 1999, inheriting a country riven by the assassination earlier that year of military strongman Ibrahim Bare Mainassara.
He is the first president of independent Niger to have lasted a full five-year term, and since his election, he has consolidated his position in the country through his party’s tight grip on the media and his own popularity in the interior of this desert nation.
One of the key issues in the election is the rampant poverty in Niger, which is one of the poorest nations on the planet.
The country was wracked by several years of volatility following independence from France in 1960, but under Tandja, some stability has returned.
Polling stations are due to close at 6pm GMT. — Sapa-AFP