By Elliott Sylvester Associated Press Writer

President Bakili Muluzi, who led the southeast African country from dictatorship to democracy, is bowing out after a decade of deepening poverty and hunger. While his United Democratic Front seems certain to retain its parliamentary majority, his controversial choice of successor has thrown the presidential race wide open.

Voting stations opened as much as an hour and a half late because of delays transporting staff and material.

At one station in the capital, Blantyre, voters refused to cast ballots after the supervisor and police arrived drunk and ballot boxes were found unsealed, electoral officials said. The angry crowd attacked one officer, who was taken to a hospital.

In another Blantyre district, the parliamentary vote was postponed because an independent candidate was left off ballot.

"These types of mistakes reflect badly on our young democracy," said opposition leader Brown Brown James Mpinganjira, one of five candidates running for president. "It will only flourish when the UDF is gone."

Malawi Electoral Commission spokesman Fergus Lipenga said officials were addressing the problems.

Voters appeared undeterred, however, waiting patiently in lines up to 500 long to cast their ballots.

"It shows people have largely understood what happened in the last 10 years, that we have entrenched freedom," said Bingu wa Mutharika, who is running for the ruling party. "The UDF has improved infrastructure, given people schools and hospitals. We are not saying it is perfect, but it is a start."

For almost 30 years, this landlocked country, one of Africa's poorest, was governed as an absolute dictatorship by self-proclaimed president-for-life Hastings Banda. Thousands of political opponents were jailed, tortured, killed or hounded into exile while Banda amassed a fortune.

Under pressure from Western aid donors, he was removed in the country's first multiparty elections in 1994, won by Muluzi.

Muluzi, 61, presided over the introduction of greater freedoms, human rights guarantees and the birth of new political parties. But despite promises to fight poverty, more than half of the country's 12 million people survive on less than a dollar a day, according to United Nations figures.

Concerns over corruption, expenditures and poor economic management have led donors to freeze millions in foreign aid, which accounts for close to 40 percent of the national budget. Years of drought and a devastating HIV epidemic have compounded Malawi's woes.

Also damaging was Muluzi's choice of successor, which prompted a string of defections from the ruling party.

Muluzi tried and failed to have the constitution changed to allow him to seek a third five-year term before nominating his 70-year-old economic planning minister for the job.

The selection of a political outsider, who in 1999 mounted an unsuccessful challenge to Muluzi at the head of his own party, angered UDF stalwarts. Wa Mutharika's rivals say he would be a figurehead, with Muluzi the real power behind the presidency.

His main challenger is Gwanda Chakuamba, 69, who heads a seven-member opposition coalition that has accused electoral officials of colluding with the ruling party to rig the vote.

The election was postponed by two days after the main opposition coalition complained to the High Court that Malawians had not been given an opportunity to verify the voters' roll.

The group claimed hundreds of thousands of voters had been left off the 5.7 million-name list. It also accused Muluzi of using state resources to campaign for his party.

Voters whose names did not appear on the computerized roll were allowed to cast ballots Thursday if they appeared on the original written lists, but the process was causing long delays.

In addition to the five presidential candidates, 1,254 people were running for parliament from 15 parties. Electoral officials expect to announce results within two days, and the new president is to be sworn in by Monday.

AP-ES-05-20-04 0706EDT