A woman walks in front of a UMP poster in Djibouti

DJIBOUTI, 8 Feb, 2008 - The poor but strategically important Red Sea state of Djibouti held a parliamentary election Friday with opposition parties boycotting the poll assailing it as undemocratic.

Only 65 candidates from a coalition loyal to President Ismael Omar Guelleh are running for the 65 seats in the legislature, and many voters have not bothered to register.

The boycott by the three main opposition parties follows a similar protest in the 2005 presidential vote in which Guelleh, in power since 1999, ran unchallenged.

Opposition parties won 38 percent of the vote in the last parliamentary polls in 2003 but this did not translate into any seats under Djibouti's first-past-the-post electoral system.

"In practice, this is a one-party system," said Ismael Guedi Hared, one of the leaders of the opposition coalition, the Union for A Democratic Alternative.

Hared accused the government of rejecting demands for proportional representation "because it feels threatened" by growing social discontent in the country.

"None of the democratic rules are respected," he said.

Polls opened with a slight delay and only a trickle of voters had turned out early to cast ballots at a polling station set up at the Al Hourya school in the town of Boualos.

"For now, it's calm," said Aaroun Ali, the supervisor of the polling station. "Of the 604 registered voters, 18 have voted."

In an interview to AFP, Prime Minister Dileita Mohamed Dileita, who heads the list of the Union for the Presidential Majority, said proportional representation risked "upsetting the tribal balance" in Djibouti.

"We have the example of our neighbour Somalia and we don't want that," he said, referring to the strife and anarchy that has plagued Somalia since 1991.

But he added that change will probably have to be envisaged in the future.

The largely desert Red Sea state, with a population of some 700,000, provides a key strategic base for French and US troops in the Horn of Africa.

The French military contingent of 2,800 is France's biggest overseas garrison. Djibouti is also home to Washington's only base in Africa, opened after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

A former French colony, Djibouti receives about 60 million euros (86 million dollars) per year from France and from the United States for permission to operate their bases, said the prime minister.

"This boon has allowed us to pay salary arrears and pensions. But poverty is still widespread," he added.

The 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea led to a spectacular increase in port traffic and a major injection of revenue into Djibouti's economy.

A nine-million-dollar Djibouti Development Agency was unveiled last month to fund new housing and water projects for the poor, and promote training as well as micro-projects, said the prime minister.

Suleiman Farah Lodon, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Renewal said turnout would be a key indicator of discontent with the government.

"If these elections today were free and transparent, the opposition would win. The abstention shows this," he says, adding that in regional elections in 2006, only 20 percent turned up at the polls.

Located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is a key staging post between the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal shipping route through to the Indian Ocean.

Source: AFP