Row mars Tanzania poll

Huge queues formed as people turned out to vote

About 10 million Tanzanians are voting on Sunday in only the second multi-party elections since Tanzania gained independence in 1961.

At stake are the control of the presidency, parliament and local government.

Incumbent President Benjamin Mkapa - whose party has dominated Tanzanian politics since independence - is widely expected to win a second term in office.

President Mpaka cast his vote in Dar es Salaam

But controversy has erupted in the semi-autonomous islands of Zanzibar, where opposition presidential candidate Seif Shariff Hamad said on Sunday that he believed many people were being denied their right to vote.

Mr Hamad said he had to wait more than five hours to cast his own vote because of "procedural delays".

He told the French news agency AFP he would organise an emergency meeting of leaders of his party, the Civic United Front (CUF), later on Sunday, as he had "very little faith" in the election.

The opposition CUF says it has little faith in the poll

The CUF claims that the ruling Chama cha Mapinduzi Party (CCM) won the last election only by rigging the ballot - a view broadly taken by western donors who suspended funding to the islands and are watching these elections carefully.

The Zanzibar poll is choosing a new parliament as well as a new president.

The mainland elections are expected to prove less controversial.

President Mkapa has been praised by international financial institutions for his economic reforms, which have raised the country's annual growth rate and cut inflation.

Unregistered voters

Mr Mkapa has also won praise for his apparent determination to haul his country - the largest in east Africa - out of the depths of extreme poverty.

But the vast majority of the Tanzanians registered to vote have not yet felt the benefits of the economic reforms.

Mr Mkapa and his ruling CCM are helped by the fact that the opposition is divided.

There are three opposition presidential candidates and all of them have complained of bias against them in the state-run media.

Living in poverty

Although the country is seen as a bastion of calm in an otherwise conflict-ridden region, an estimated half of the population - some 15 to 18 million people - live below the World Bank poverty line.

Many cannot afford the school fees to educate their children.

The health system is also in crisis - a legacy of the failed socialist policies of the country's still much-revered late leader, Julius Nyerere.