Contesting parties have been trade accusations with Alain-Claude billie-By-Nze, spokesman for Ali Bongo, accusing career diplomat Jean Ping of disrespecting the country’s institutions by preparing to publish false results.
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“This is a flagrant violation of election law” which opens the way to fraud, Jean Gaspard Ntoutoume Ayi said in a statement.
Elsewhere in the capital, voting had not yet started at several polling stations.
European Union vote observers said that at least half of the 2,500 polling stations around the country opened late but otherwise reported no major incidents. “Life and death”, Ping said.
Bongo, who has been president since 2009 when his father Omar died after 41 years in power, said he was “calm” as his countrymen went to the polls.
The tense campaign has featured efforts to get Bongo’s candidacy annulled based on claims he was born in Nigeria and therefore is ineligible to be president – claims Bongo has dismissed as unfounded.
Polling stations will close at 6 p.m. local time (1700 GMT).
Until recently, Bongo was far and away the favourite, largely because several prominent politicians had declared themselves as candidates, thereby dividing the opposition. Both sides have accused the other of trying to buy voter cards, in some cases for as little as 10,000 CFA francs (15.25 euros) apiece.
Faced with repeated charges of nepotism, Bongo has long insisted he owes his presidency to merit and his years of government service.
His extravagant campaign made much of the slogan “Let’s change together”, and of roads and hospitals built during his first term. The incumbent has promised to clean up corruption and criticized the older generation of statesmen; a jibe that encompassed his political opponent as well as his own father.
“There’s a risk that certain people who did so much harm to our country will come back” to power, the president told a crowd of thousands during his last rally in the capital on Friday.
Recent months have seen growing popular unrest and numerous public sector strikes as well as thousands of layoffs in the oil sector. More than 600,000 voters are registered to participate in Saturday’s vote, and provisional results are expected early next week.
Bongo’s victory in 2009 sparked looting and clashes between protesters and security forces.
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Several people were killed, buildings were looted and the French consulate in Port Gentil was torched. Ping and several of his top allies served in high-level positions under Omar Bongo.
