VOTERS QUEUE OUTSIDE VOTING BOOTHS AT A POLLING STATION, 2000-10-29 (photo)

Voters queue outside a polling booth in Zanzibar October 29, 2000. Tanzania's second multi-party elections got off to a chaotic start on Sunday with many polling stations on the troubled islands of Zanzibar still not open hours after voting began. Seif Shariff Hamad, Zanzibar presidential candidate for the opposition Civic United Front (CUF), accused the electoral commission of being grossly inefficient or purposely disruptive. President Benjamin Mkapa looked almost certain to be returned for a second five-year term as leader of the overall Tanzanian Union, formed when mainland Tanganyika and the Zanzibar islands merged in 1964. He is standing against four other candidates, all of whom he defeated easily in the last general elections in 1995, Tanzania's first multi-party ballot since winning independence from Britain in 1961. GMM