Coup leader turned candidate Johnny Paul Koroma

At the Benguema training camp, about 32 kilometres (20 miles) east of the capital Freetown, new recruits drawn from different factions that participated in the war lined up to vote, the AFP news agency reported.

The recruits were supervised by officials from the National Election Commission (NEC).

NEC chairman Walter Nicol told journalists on Friday that between 10,000 and 15,000 voters were expected to take part in the special ballot.

Their votes are to be counted after Tuesday's elections.

Patient queues

Retrained by former colonial power Britain after years of coup-plotting and disorder, soldiers formed a patient line of khaki under the hot sun at Freetown's Wilberforce barracks, Reuters news agency reported.

The scene was a contrast to the total power that soldiers took for themselves after coups in 1992 and 1997, when they cruised the streets in the knowledge their rule was law.

Britain intervened in the war and helped retrain combatants

"Everything has been going very smoothly," said Sheku Sheriff, the presiding officer at the polling station set up under the canopy at the edge of the dusty parade ground.

The main candidates contesting the elections held their first big rallies on Friday.

President Ahmad Teja Kabbah began his campaign in his political heartland in the south of the country.

The BBC'S Mark Doyle was at the rally in Kenema and said the whole town appeared to have turned out to support the president and his Sierra Leone People's Party.

In Freetown, supporters of the main opposition All People's Congress danced and whistled as they were addressed by their candidate, Ernest Bai Koroma.