Blantyre, Malawi - Voters in the southern African country of Malawi queued from early morning to cast their vote in presidential and parliamentary elections in which the incumbent Bingu wa Mutharika is battling for a second term.

Polls opened across the impoverished agricultural country at 6 a. m. (0400 GMT), with state radio reporting long queues in the capital Lilongwe and the commercial capital Blantyre. Hundreds of people waited to vote in some places.

These are the third general elections since two-term former leader Bakili Muluzi's United Democratic Front (UDF) ended 30 years of one-party rule by Malawi's first, autocratic president, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, in 1994.

Some 6.5 million Malawians, a little over half the population of the former British colony, are registered to vote.

The presidential election is a two-horse race between Mutharika and opposition leader John Tembo. A court barred Muluzi, who had earlier served two terms as president, from seeking a third term.

The technocratic Mutharika is credited with boosting growth to around 9 per cent last year and improving food security through the introduction of a fertilizer subsidy.

For the past three years Malawi, which relies on donor aid for over half its budget, has produced maize surpluses.

But Mutharika and his Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) face an uphill battle to retain power against Tembo, a former right-hand man to Hastings Banda, who has taken Banda's Malawi Congress Party into coalition with Muluzi's UDF.

The European Union has dispatched close to 80 observers to the elections, which are also being observed by African teams.(dpa)