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ZAMBIA: Five million Zambians go to the polls

AFP - The polls for the presidential election in Zambia opened Tuesday morning at 0400 GMT (0600 local).

Over five million Zambians are called to elect their president from the outgoing Rupiah Banda, near the business and surfing the copper boom, and his main rival Michael Sata, a nationalist who promised to fight against poverty.

Rupiah Banda is the candidate of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MDM), in power for 20 years, while Sata is the man of the Patriotic Front (PF).

The poll looks very tight, analysts said, and President Banda has given instructions to police to avoid overflow, after the post-election violence that marked the elections of 2006 and 2008.

Banda claims to have led a country to record growth rates in Africa, thanks to soaring copper prices, the main source of income in Zambia.This rate was 7.6% in 2010 and 6.4% the previous year.

Sata accused of corruption including, for allowing foreign investors to lay hands on the wealth and did nothing to lift its people out of poverty, 64% of Zambians still living on less than $ 2 per day.