Oil power Angola holds landmark elections

LUANDA, Sept 5 (AFP) Angolans voted Friday in their first peacetime elections with the ruling leftwing MPLA expected to keep a firm grip on the war ravaged new oil power while the opposition said the poll is unfair.brSix years after the end of a 27-year civil war that left 500,000 people dead, handfuls of people gathered outside Luanda polling stations as they opened to cast votes.brThe vast majority of Angola's 17 million people remain mired in poverty despite rocketing growth brought about by its huge oil and diamond reserves.brAbout eight million people registered to vote in the first attempt to hold a poll since failed elections in 1992. However noone expects a serious challenge to President Jose Eduardo dos Santos' Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA).brIt's important, we need to move forward because the elections have been delayed for too long, Daniel Hiyelekwa, 58, who voted in the upmarket Cidade Alta neigbourhood near the presidential palace, told AFP.brIn six years of peace there have been many changes we will move into a higher gear to develop the country], he added.The MPLA was originally a Marxist-Leninist group but is now nominally social democratic.brIts control of the oil and diamond industries has given the opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) little chance to build momentum since 2002.