New problems, few voters in Nigerian poll re-run

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Apr 28 (Reuters) Ballot papers were stolen and voters intimidated when Nigeria re-staged polls for hundreds of state and federal legislators' seats today after elections widely condemned as fraudulent.

The April 14 and 21 polls delivered a landslide victory for the People's Democratic Party (PDP), which has ruled Africa's most populous nation and biggest oil exporter for eight years.

But international observers said the elections were not credible and the opposition has rejected the results.

The electoral body had rescheduled elections for some seats in 26 of the 36 states, in places where the earlier polls were cancelled due to massive irregularities. In one state, southeastern Imo, the election for governor was rescheduled.

Reuters correspondents in several states witnessed similar problems on Saturday as had occurred on the two previous polling days and said turnout was low.

In Port Harcourt, the main city in the oil-producing Niger Delta in southern Nigeria, this reporter saw a polling station that had been taken over by about a dozen young men shouting ''PDP power! We are in control!''.

They had several of the official transparent ballot boxes, all stuffed with voting slips marked for the PDP. There were no voters in sight. The youths threatened to beat up the reporter and damage his car. Ten policemen stood by and did nothing.

Aseso Koko, a voter who tried to cast his ballot at the polling station, said he had been turned away.

''I came here to exercise my civic responsibility but these hoodlums intimidated me. They threatened me and told me to go elsewhere. I'm not happy about it but this place is not safe,'' he said.

''CHARADE'' The elections were supposed to be a landmark democratic transition in Nigeria, a nation scarred by three decades of army rule. For the first time, one civilian president is due to hand over to another through the ballot box.

But European observers said vote-rigging was so widespread that the elections were ''not credible'' and ''fell far short of basic international standards''. The main organisation of Nigerian observers called the polls ''a charade''.

The PDP's Umaru Yar'Adua, the president-elect, has insisted he won fair and square and advised aggrieved candidates to seek redress through the courts. But analysts in Nigeria and abroad say Yar'Adua will face a serious legitimacy problem.

In Orumba, a rural constituency in southeastern Anambra state, voting materials had yet to arrive more than two hours after the election for the House of Representatives seat was supposed to start on Saturday.

''I hope that they are not doing the voting in private homes as before,'' said Tagbo Ike, who is contesting the seat for the opposition All Progressives Grand Alliance party.

On April 14 and 21, voting started late or never started at all in many parts of Nigeria because PDP supporters stole the ballots and result sheets to falsify results, observers said.

In Port Harcourt, electoral officials in one ward said they had received just 500 senatorial ballot papers and 200 House of Representatives ballots instead of the 4,500 of each they needed.

They opened some polling stations but in the first half hour this reporter saw just two voters.

''People are no longer interested in the outcome of the election because of what they have experienced, the violence and the rigging,'' said John Ibom, one of the two.

REUTERS SM ND1818