Voters Prepare to Avenge the Agony of a Nation

Sierra Leone's infamous rebel army turned political party is headed for a decisive defeat in today's presidential election, two years after British military intervention put an end to the its hopes of seizing power by force.

The once-feared Revolutionary United Front - whose handiwork included hacking limbs off children, gang-raping girls and dispatching their drugged-up young brothers into battle - has admitted it has no hope of winning the ballot after British involvement neutered it militarily and politically.

The RUF's former leader, Foday Sankoh, is on trial for mass murder after two years in solitary confinement reduced him to a mumbling figure in dreadlocks who refuses to bathe. He is described by the front's new leader as "mentally unbalanced".

The electorate is expected to return President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah to power just two years after his government stood on the brink of being overthrown by force for a second time.

Despite a brief bout of election violence at the weekend, when stone-throwing government supporters confronted former rebels, the relative calm of the campaign has convinced many in Sierra Leone that their nightmare really is over.

The war, which claimed close to 200,000 lives, officially ended in January, and the RUF had ceased to hold sway over Sierra Leone's future long before that.

But the rebels' demise does not mean the end of instability. Another candidate who has caused the country much misery - the Sandhurst-trained former military ruler and one-time Sankoh ally, Johnny Paul Koroma - has been threatening to make Sierra Leone "ungovernable" if he loses.

Mr Koroma is the presidential candidate of the Peace and Liberation party. He has found God and calls himself "the Angel".

As a former military ruler, he has tried to rally support within the army.

The deputy defence minister, Sam Hinga Norman, who headed a rival militia during the war, has warned him not to provoke unrest in the military.

"The army will not take power for themselves," said Mr Norman. "The army he is talking about is a changed army."

The British high commissioner in Freetown, David Alan Jones, has warned Mr Koroma and others against undermining the election, but even if the vote passes off without incident British troops and United Nations peacekeepers are likely to remain in Sierra Leone for some time.

"Let's say the worst is, perhaps, behind us," said the commander of the world's largest UN peacekeeping force, General Daniel Opande. "But the peace needs to be built upon and to be strengthened, and fires can still be lit and they can burn."

President Kabbah has shrugged off the years of corruption and turmoil, which brought war to the capital and saw him overthrown by his own military then reinstated by the Nigerian army.

He now portrays himself as the candidate of stability and continuity.

Certainly, Mr Kabbah is Britain's favoured candidate, and that counts for a lot among an electorate not keen to see the UK downgrade its role in Sierra Leone.

British troops contained the RUF, and oversaw its decline as the UK rebuilt Sierra Leone's military and directed the war against the rebels. But with the army and police, in effect, under British control, and "advice" from Whitehall civil servants seconded to a host of ministries, Sierra Leone has become one of the largest per capita recipients of foreign aid in the world.

Last year it received almost £1bn for a country of 4.8m people.

The one man who might have offered a serious political challenge to Mr Kabbah was the front's leader, Cpl Sankoh, if only because his organisation recently held sway over much of the population.

It dropped the slogan "Arms to the People" last November, and reduced its demands merely to power and wealth.

But Cpl Sankoh is barred from running for president on the grounds that he is not a registered voter.

His wife, Fatou, says that is because her husband has been locked up since shortly after the British intervention.

"They held him incommunicado, in detention, for almost two years. They said they are detaining him for his protection. So why they didn't allow him to register?" she asked.

The rebels split over whether to put up an alternative candidate. In April, the front finally settled on its secretary general, Pallo Bangura.

Mr Bangura, a minister in the short-lived national unity government which ruled until the 1999 peace accords collapsed, has said publicly he does not expect to win.

"We know we as the RUF can not win the presidential elections, but we are certain we can win seats in the parliamentary elections," he said.

The former rebel group has been battling to overcome mass defections, rising discontent among its former combatants languishing in demobilisation camps and lack of campaign funds. Instead, it has been distributing rice seed to farmers in its former strongholds in the hope of retaining their loyalty.

Leading figures

President: Ahmed Tejan Kabbah

Population: 4.8m

Registered voters: 2.3m

Life expectancy: 33 years

GNP per head in 1998: £90

Lives lost in 10-year civil war: approx 200,000

Refugees: one in five of the population

Estimated foreign aid for 2002: Nearly £1bn

UK troops deployed in Sierra Leone: 335

UN peacekeepers: 17,500