KEY POINTS:
France will usher in a new era of change in presidential elections today in which voters are to choose a successor to President Jacques Chirac.
Two main candidates, the conservative former minister Nicolas Sarkozy and the Socialist former minister Segolene Royal, have remained steady as the voters' most
popular choices to go forward into the decisive second round after tomorrow's first round narrows the field.
But experienced French pollsters and commentators point out that given the high number of undecided voters on the eve of the election - roughly one third of the 44 million-strong electorate - there could still be a big surprise that could catapult one of the other two candidates into the second round. With the polls pointing in different directions, the first round is too close to call.
Francois Bayrou, a centrist former education minister campaigning for an end to the left/right divide that has traditionally polarised French political life, and the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, are the jokers in the pack who have created a sense of suspense about the outcome.
The only thing on which the opinion polls agree is the pecking order of the candidates' popularity. Sarkozy, Chirac's former hardline interior minister, has consistently been in first place, with Royal, who was a minister under Francois Mitterrand, in second. Bayrou and Le Pen come in third and fourth, according to the polls.
But yesterday's opinion polls produced different results for each candidate, with Sarkozy oscillating between 28 per cent and 30 per cent, and Royal coming in with 23-24 per cent. Bayrou recorded 18-19.5 per cent, while Le Pen had 13-14 per cent.
If the polls are reliable - and in previous elections they have not been - that should mean that the second round would be a traditional battle between the right and the left. But polling experts say that Le Pen's vote is likely to be underestimated - as it was in 2002, when he shocked the country by securing a place in the run-off against Chirac.
Meanwhile, Nigerians are also voting in landmark polls that should, for the first time in the country's post-colonial history, see a power transfer between two civilian presidents, amid widespread insecurity and general disorganisation.
Just hours ahead of the election, violence flared again in the south of the world's sixth biggest oil exporter.
Gunfire broke out at a hotel in Yenagoa, Bayelsa state, where the ruling party's vice-presidential candidate was staying, but he was not hurt, a diplomatic source said.
The latest unrest comes a week after state elections triggered violence that left at least 21 people dead.
President Olusegun Obasanjo, a former general, acknowledged that voting in the gubernatorial poll had been marred by fraud, and he called for a crackdown on any attempts at vote rigging.
