Johannesburg/Luanda - Angolans were going to the polls Friday in the first national election in the war-scarred country in 16 years. President Eduardo dos Santos' party was expected to win easily.

Dos Santos, 68, who has maintained a tight grip on power for 29 years, had repeatedly delayed parliamentary and presidential elections on the grounds that the country's ruined infrastructure made them unfeasible.

The elections to the 220-seat National Assembly on Friday and Saturday, while deemed unlikely to dent the majority of dos Santos' MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola), are seen as a dry run for presidential elections scheduled for next year.

As such, the MPLA is campaigning vigorously to ward off any surprises from UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), the lacklustre opposition party against which it fought a 27- year civil war.

Some Angolans have been remembering with nervousness the last time country voted. It was 1992 and the MPLA and UNITA had just agreed a peace deal, paving the way for presidential elections.

UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi rejected his narrow defeat by dos Santos and resumed his guerrilla war that ended with his death a decade later. All told, at least half a million people are thought to have died in the war and millions were displaced.

Six years and a multi-billion-dollar credit line from China later Angola has begun rebuilding the country, using its considerable oil reserves as collateral.

After Nigeria, Angola is now Africa's second-largest oil producer, pumping out close to 2 million barrels of crude a day. A member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) since 2007, Angola is also now China's number-one source for the fuel.

Campaigning in the election has been largely peaceful although Human Rights Watch, in a report last month, sounded the alarm over sporadic attacks by MPLA supporters against mainly UNITA supporters.

The New York-based rights watchdog also raised concerns over suppression of media freedoms and the lack of independence of the National Electoral Commission in wondering whether the polls were likely to be truly free and fair. (dpa)