Madagascar voters go to polls in long-awaited election

Voters in Madagascar are going to the polls in the first election since the 2009 military-backed takeover.

Thirty-three candidates are contesting the election, which has been postponed three times this year.

Two front-runners are competing with a similar pledge to rebuild the island's economy after years of unrest.

Voting has been orderly in the capital but a local official was killed in an attack on a polling station in the south-western town of Benenitra.

Another person was kidnapped from a polling station in Bezaha, elsewhere in the south, an interior ministry source told the AFP news agency.

More than 92% of the country's 21 million people live on less than $2 (£1.2) a day, according to the World Bank.

The two front-runners, Hery Martial Rakotoarimanana Rajaonarimampianina and Richard Jean-Louis Robinson, are both pledging to rebuild Madagascar's economy.

President Andry Rajoelina ousted Marc Ravalomanana from power in 2009, plunging the island nation into political turmoil and leaving the country isolated by the international community and deprived of foreign aid.

'Return to constitutional order'

After seizing power, Mr Rajoelina announced that there would be a new constitution and elections within 24 months. 

In May 2009 it was agreed that all former presidents would be allowed to stand in the election. However, these failed to take place in 2009 or 2010. 

After casting his vote in the capital, Antananarivo, Mr Rajoelina said that it was time Madagascar "returned to the constitutional order", the Associated Press news agency reports.

"The crisis has lasted too long,'' he is quoted as saying.
In January this year Mr Rajoelina and Mr Ravalomanana both agreed not to stand in the polls, in line with a plan by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional bloc that Madagascar belongs to. 

The first round of this election was set to take place in July 2013 but was pushed back to August because Mr Ravalomanana's wife and former first lady, Lalao - and then Mr Rajoelina himself - decided to run, prompting donors to suspend financing for the poll.

Mr Rajoelina and Lalao Ravalomanana were then barred from standing and the electoral court also struck former President Didier Ratsiraka from the list of candidates after the three refused to withdraw. 
The African Union had said it would not recognise the results if any of the three were declared the winner. 

The electoral commission then set the elections for 25 October.
According to the local news website Orange, security officials say the situation is under control in Benenitra, where the official, a district chief, was killed and helicopters are flying over southern parts of the island.

As well as the trouble reported in the south of the Indian Ocean island, a polling station was also burnt down in the northern Tsaratanana district, the interior ministry source told AFP.

Mr Rajaonarimampianina, a former finance minister in the transitional government, says he aims to help the unemployed, build infrastructure to improve agriculture, reform the education system and make Madagascar a strong democracy.