Maputo - Voting continued past the scheduled close of polls in Mozambique Wednesday as people queued to cast their ballots in presidential and parliamentary elections which are expected to return President Armando Guebuza to power. Voters had already formed queues outside polling stations across the vast south-east African nation hours before the election got underway at 7 am (0500 GMT). The polls had been due to close at 6 pm (1600 GMT) but many stations remained open to accommodate people still standing in line.
Preliminary results are expected on Monday. The final results are expected within around two weeks.
Guebuza is leader of the ruling Frelimo party, a former Marxist liberation movement that freed the country from Portuguese rule in 1975 and has won every election since the first multi-party ballot in 1994.
Frelimo's main challenger is the conservative Renamo party, which fought a 16-year civil war with Frelimo between 1976 and 1992 that killed around 1 million people.
Some 10.3 million Mozambicans are eligible to vote for a president, 250-seat national assembly and 10 new provincial assemblies. Observers said participation appeared much higher than in 2004, when turnout fell to a record low of 36 per cent.
"The process is going well in every part of the country," the head of the Central Electoral Commission, Joao Leopoldo da Costa, said during the day.
In recent years the government has abandoned Marxism for free-market policies. The country of around 20 million people, one of the world's poorest, has been one of Africa's success stories.
A surge of foreign investment in gas, coal, hydropower, mineral sands and other sectors has fuelled strong gross domestic product GDP growth, which is expected to come in at over 5 per cent this year, despite the international slowdown.
Guebuza, a wealthy businessman, and Frelimo, are expected to be re-elected on a platform of continued reforms and development.
"I'm voting for Frelimo because I want the government to continue what it is doing," Vitorino Cossa, a 30-year-old civil servant said as he stood in line at a polling station in the capital Maputo.
For second place, Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama faces a strong challenge from the leader of a new party, Daviz Simango.
Simango, the popular mayor of the central port city of Beira, broke away from Renamo last year following a disagreement to form the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM).
The party, which has aroused interest among young voters, has been barred from contesting 9 of 13 constituencies in the National Assembly elections by the electoral commission, which Simango accuses of being biased in favour of Frelimo.
Casting his vote, Simango, son of a Frelimo leader who was killed during the liberation struggle, said: "I was born and grew up with a dream: to be president."
Dhlakama, who is making his fourth stab at president, said: I think this time I will win."
