It's just twenty years since Djibouti won independence from France, almost the last African state to throw off colonial rule. France, which still maintains a large military base in Djibouti, tried to leave behind a government balanced between the two main ethnic groups, the Issa who are of Somali origin, and the Afar minority of Ethiopian origin.

But President Hassan Gouled Aptidon soon installed an authoritarian one-party state dominated by his own Issa community. Afar resentment erupted into a civil war in the early 1990s, and though President Gouled, under French pressure, introduced a limited multi-party system in 1992, the rebels from the Afar party, FRUD Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy, were not allowed to participate.

As a result, President Gouled's RPP Popular Rally for Progress party won every seat and the war went on. It ended in 1994 with a power-sharing deal which brought the FRUD into government, although a splinter faction fights on.

These elections, then, are the most democratic so far, although they are not expected to change much. President Gouled's RPP, now aligned in a coalition with its former enemy the FRUD, is expected to win easily.

But the two legal opposition parties the Democratic Renewal Party and the smaller National Democratic Party may win some seats because of economic discontent. Budget cuts demanded by the International Monetary Fund, demobilisation after the civil war, alleged corruption and mismanagement, and dwindling foreign aid have led to high unemployment, a backlog in civil servants' pay and power blackouts.