HARGEISA, Somalia (AFP) - Voting began briskly in presidential elections in breakaway Somaliland's capital on Monday, the first such vote in a decade.
Queues of several hundred people - men and women - lined up separately, waiting for the polls to open at 6:00 am (0300 GMT).
President Dahir Riyale Kahin of the Unity of Democrats (UDUB) Party voted at the Civil Service Commission near the presidential palace at 6:30 am.
His two opponents in the race, Ahmed Muhammad Silanyo of the Hisbiga Kulmiye (Solidarity Party) and Faisal Ali Warabe of the Justice and Restoration Party (UCID), both voted at the same polling station within the first hour.
The crowd at the station enthusiastically cheered the three candidates as they arrived, dipped the tips of their little fingers on their right hands into indelible ink and registered, before voting. Kahin has pledged that he will spend most of his efforts to democratise Somaliland and to secure international recognition for the state, which unilaterally broke away from the rest of Somalia in 1991.
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