Better known for their tourism trade than their politics, Seychelles islanders voted on Sunday on the final day of an election thought to be a close run between the incumbent president and an Anglican priest.
President James Michel and clergyman Wavel Ramkalawan were believed neck-and-neck in the race for power on the archipelago of 115 mostly tiny coraline islands famed as a paradise of pristine beaches, palm trees and colourful reefs.
Polls opened at 7 am (0300 GMT) on the main islands Mahe and La Digue, where 98 percent of Seychelles 81,000 people live.
But a Reuters witness saw long lines of voters queuing up outside polling stations from 5 am (0100 GMT).
"It's going to be tight. Everyone's nervous. But I hope Michel will win. He's done a good job," said Janet Farabeau, 36.
As earlier voting ended on the country's outer isles on Friday and Saturday, motor boats and Twin Otter aeroplanes rushed full ballot boxes back to the capital Victoria.
Michel's Seychelles People's Progressive Front and Ramkalawan's Seychelles National Party were way ahead in the polls, with lawyer Phillippe Boulle trailing far behind.
Holding his 9-month-old baby as he cast a vote in his home constituency of St. Louis, Ramkalawan accused the ruling party of buying votes and warned he would challenge an unfair result.
"Voters are being given a 'final briefing' and I believe money has changed hands. I have complained to the electoral commission," he said. "If I lose unfairly, I will go to court."
But Michel's aides said the allegations were unfounded.
"They've said this every election - it's one of their usual tricks, like a record replaying. They're preparing themselves psychologically for when they lose," presidential advisor Gilbert Pool told Reuters by telephone.
The election campaign has been overshadowed by fears over future economic growth and a severe foreign currency shortage.
The SPPF has ruled since former President Albert Rene took power in a 1977 coup. He restored multi-party democracy in 1993.
In a 2001 vote, Ramkalawan, nicknamed "Father", won 45 percent against Rene's 54 percent. Boulle got 1 percent.
Rene stepped down and appointed Michel his successor in 2004, but many Seychellois say they want change.
"We are finished with the ruling party," shouted Jean-Claude Barra, 26, as he left a booth angrily shaking his dreadlocks. "We want Father to rule."
Despite the travel brochure image, the Seychelles is struggling to emerge from a recession and is deep in debt after decades of generous social spending that left it at the top of the 2005 UN Human Development Index, out of African countries.
With a public debt of 167 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2005, it is one the world's most indebted countries.
Ramkalawan, a former democracy campaigner under Rene's one-party state, has promised to end what he says is a culture of dependency left by decades of paternalistic, socialist rule.
He accuses Michel of failing to tackle the islands' foreign exchange shortage, although both candidates have pledged to scrap a 5.5 rupees to the US dollar peg.
Fisheries are now the top foreign earner, overtaking tourism in 2005, when they grossed 1.6 billion rupees ($290 million), compared to 1.3 billion rupees ($235 million) from tourism.
Seychellois are mostly mixed-blood Creole descendents of European colonists and the African slaves they brought with them in chains, with a small ethnic Indian and Chinese minority.
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