Voters in Guatemala will be electing mayors today in thirty towns, in the first election since the country's civil war ended two years ago.

Three of the candidates are former guerrillas standing for the leftist New Guatemala Democratic Front.

The governing National Advancement Party or PAN of President Alvaro Arzu has put forward candidates in all thirty municipalities, many of them incumbent mayors.

They'll also be fighting candidates from the right-wing Guatemalan Republican Front, and the Progressive Liberator Party, also right of centre.

Left-wing former rebels of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unit or URNG are not fielding candidates, because their party was not officially constituted in time for the election.

Observers say the local poll is seen as indicative of how the electorate could vote in general elections in two years' time.