Gunmen have attacked three polling stations in Yemen's restive south, officials say, a day before the country is to go to the polls to rubber stamp its vice-president as the new head of state after 33 years of one-man rule.
When voting ends here Tuesday in early presidential elections, there's no doubt that something historic will have taken place: President Ali Abdullah Saleh will be the fourth veteran leader toppled over the course of the Arab Spring.
A total of four people were reported killed in clashes across the country. The violence underlines the security vacuum in the Arabian peninsula's poorest country after a one-year popular uprising seeking to oust Saleh.
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Under a US-backed deal brokered by Yemen's Gulf Arab neighbours, Saleh's deputy, Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, is to become president after a vote on Tuesday in which he is the only candidate.
Posters and huge banners brandishing Hadi's photo and urging Yemenis to cast ballots have appeared throughout the capital Sanaa as voting day approaches. Thousands of people attended an electoral rally early on Monday in support of the vice-president.
Hadi, a low-profile figure who served under Saleh for years, did not attend the event and has rarely addressed the public. Still, many Yemenis who originally opposed the deal that will bring Hadi to power now support the move merely because it will officially end Saleh's 33-year rule.
Security has collapsed across Yemen during the uprising, with security forces regularly using lethal force against protesters and clashing with various armed groups. The US and Saudi Arabia have struggled to ensure a smooth transition in hopes that Yemen will continue to cooperate in fighting the country's al-Qaeda branch, which has carried out attacks in the US.
Two Yemeni soldiers were killed in a gunfight with al-Qaeda militants near the city of Zinjibar, security officials said.
Militants seized control of the town last year, exploiting the country's unrest.
In the central town of Daleh, one soldier was killed in a shootout with gunmen associated with a group calling for independence for Yemen's south.
In another incident, a member of a separatist group was shot and killed by police in a town in the southern province of Hadramout during an alleged attempt to storm a polling station there.
Officials said the attacks were related to the elections, but Nasser Baqizqooz of the separatist Southern Movement said by phone that while his group is boycotting the vote, it rejects the use of violence to prevent the election.
In the port city of Aden, gunmen fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a polling station, then fled. No-one was hurt and police are searching for suspects.
And in the southern province of Shabwa, armed men raided a polling station in the town of Ataq, expelling the election workers and occupying the building, officials said.
The attacks appeared unrelated, security officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity under security protocols.
However, Yemenis remain divided on the vote.
The politically independent youth activists who've spearheaded anti-government demonstrations in Sanaa since they began more than a year ago say they'll keep their protests going. They note that the selection of Saleh's longtime deputy, Vice President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, as Saleh's replacement - Hadi is the only name on the ballot - hardly signals the change they've demanded.
Elsewhere in Yemen, significant blocs are expected to boycott the vote. Supporters of the Houthis - Zaydi Shi'ite Muslim rebels who control much of the nation's far north - and the Southern Movement, a loose group of secessionists who've called for a return to autonomy in the south, are expected not to cast ballots.
Both groups say they were excluded from talks that led to Saleh's agreement to step down under an accord negotiated by the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
Still, many Yemenis hail the election as a means of sparing the country further violence, and Saleh's General People's Congress party and the Joint Meeting Parties, a coalition of Yemen's establishment opposition parties, have backed the election enthusiastically.
Despite his long-standing ties to Saleh, opposition politicians have cast Hadi's election as the dawning of a new era, the beginning of a period of substantive changes in the structure of the government.
