When Conde and Diallo were pitted against each other after the first round of 2010 voting, clashes broke out along ethnic lines.
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A different outcome would be preferred by main opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo but he has urged calm with no post-electoral violence.
Guineans are voting in the country’s second democratic presidential elections in more than 50 years.
A presidential election with a build-up marred by violence in recent days was under way in Guinea on Sunday, amid a heavy presence of security officers and armoured vehicles in the capital Conakry.
Mamadou Mansare was happy after placing his vote.
“It’s shameful. Look at this, it looks like a hiding spot for bandits”, said a voter named Diallo, who declined to give his full name. Similar clashes this week killed at least three people and injured a few 50.
At some polling stations, voting began only a few minutes behind schedule but in others there were complaints that paperwork and officials had not arrived by late morning.
“We will vote, defend our suffrage, defend our victory because there is no way we will let our victory be stolen”, said Diallo, DW reported.
“Otherwise we shan’t accept the results and I shall mobilize the population with all the other (opposition) candidates to reject them”, he warned, accusing the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) of being “incompetent and biased”.
Opponents of incumbent President Alpha Conde had called for the postponement over what they called the unreliability of the electoral lists and problems with distributing voter cards, which are required to cast a ballot. The violence is expected to grow as the nation goes to vote and awaits results.
Casting his vote in the Conakry neighbourhood of Boulbinet, Mr Conde, dressed in a white tunic, reiterated an earlier call for calm.
“Actively harmful policies pursued by the current government – including forced expropriations, corrupt awarding of contracts, a misguided review of mining licenses, and hostility to foreign investment – were the cause of much of the current economic misery”, said David Rice, an adjunct professor at New York University and director of the Development Dividend Project.
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The nation is trying to restore economic growth after the worst outbreak of Ebola stalled progress in the world’s largest exporter of bauxite.
