Kyrgyzstan held a presidential poll to choose a successor to ousted leader Askar Akayev, with front-runner and interim President Kurmanbek Bakiyev hailing the vote as a fresh start for the Central Asian country.

Bakiyev, swept to office in March as protestors overran the seat of government, trumpeted the vote as the country’s first genuinely free poll in many years.

"For the first time in recent years the elections are actually elections. Every citizen of Kyrgyzstan has been provided with the right to choose. Nobody is pressuring anyone, nobody is threatening anyone," Bakiyev said, after voting at a polling station near his Bishkek home.

Voters said they hoped the poll would end the instability that has plagued this mountainous nation of five million people since Akayev was chased from office by thousands of rock-throwing, stick-wielding youths on March 24. The former leader has since taken up residence near Moscow.

"My family and I hope this really changes something in the country, my parents want stability from Bakiyev," said 19-year-old first-time voter Gulzada Takiyeva.

Some voters and observers have expressed disappointment however at a lack of genuine competition in a vote seen as all-but won by 55-year-old Bakiyev, a former communist party functionary and Akayev-era prime minister.

"I’m sick of chaos and cataclysms," said 56-year-old Anatoly Glotov, adding that he backed Bakiyev but regretted there were "no alternative candidates."

Named interim president a day after Akayev fled, Bakiyev was a leading figure in the March revolt.

In subsequent weeks he secured a deal clearing the field of his main rival, Felix Kulov, who dropped out of the race on a promise that he would be made prime minister.

The vote is being closely watched by the outside world as a potential landmark event -- the first time any of the Central Asian former Soviet republics has had a change of leader, except during a bloody civil war in Tajikistan in the mid-1990s.

But the weeks since Akayev's ouster have seen a continued wave of instability across the country, including violent protests.

Observers are keenly watching to see whether turnout reaches more than 50 percent of the 2.6 million eligible voters. If not, a second round would take place, potentially weakening Bakiyev's position.

On Sunday the authorities claimed to have the situation well under control.

A strong police presence was visible at polling stations, while the streets were patrolled by "people's militias," set up to rein in disorder following Akayev's ouster.

"No threat to the voting process has been detected so far," a police spokesman told AFP.

As late in the campaign as Friday, the fragility of the situation was underlined, as rival groups clashed for control of a major bazaar in the southern town of Kara-Suu.

Not everyone in Kyrgyzstan is happy with the current changes.

A member of the underground Islamic organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir said Sundays vote represented no improvement on the Akayev era.

"Democracy has brought us corruption, thievery and prostitution," the Hizb ut-Tahrir member, Diliar Dzhumabayev, told AFP in the southern provincial centre of Osh. "There will be violations during these elections, but the Western observers will close their eyes to them because it suits their interests."

As both the United States and Russia have military bases in Kyrgyzstan, the vote also raises geopolitical concerns.

During his brief stewardship, Bakiyev has tilted his policy closer to Moscow and away from Washington.

The interim president has said he favors bolstering Russias military standing in Kyrgyzstan, while he has also called on Washington to set a deadline for the pullout of its airbase, used to support coalition missions in nearby Afghanistan.

Nearly nine percent of eligible voters had cast their ballot by 9:00 am (03:00 GMT) two hours into voting, according to Kyrgyzstans central election committee. Polls were to close at 9:00 pm (15:00 GMT) and preliminary results were expected early Monday.

The vote is being monitored by numerous observers, including over 300 from the West's main election-monitoring body, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

PHOTO CAPTION

Acting Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev smiles after casting his ballot at a polling station, during presidential elections in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Sunday, July 10, 2005. (AP)