COUNTING has begun in Zimbabwe’s first election since the removal of Robert Mugabe, with the result determining the former British colony’s future for decades.

Millions of people voted peacefully across the country Monday and turnout appeared extremely high, with long lines of voters forming outside polling stations across the country when they opened at 7 a.m.

By early afternoon, polling officials in the capital, Harare, and surrounding towns were reporting that between 75 percent and 85 percent of registered voters had cast their ballots. Full results are not due until much later in the week.

The two main candidates could not be more different: the president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75, was a longtime Mugabe aide and is head of the ruling Zanu-PF party.

Nelson Chamisa, 40, who leads the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is a lawyer and pastor whose only experience of power was a stint as a minister in a coalition government several years ago.

The two represent dramatically different ideologies and political styles, as well as generations. Mnangagwa offers continuity; Chamisa a radical rupture.

International observers offered varying impressions of the election, but they all noted it had been peaceful.(SD-Agencies)