Voters in Guinea-Bissau are casting their votes for president Sunday.
Incumbent Jose Mario Vaz is among the 12 candidates vying to lead the West African country. He is the first democratically elected president in Guinea-Bissau's history to finish his term.
He is up for re-election but is facing stiff competition from several opponents, including former Prime Ministers Carlos Gomes Junior and Domingos Simoes Pereira.
If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, another vote will be held next month.
Guinea-Bissau has been plagued with political instability, poverty, corruption, and drug trafficking.
When the president fired Pereira from the prime minister post in 2015, a political stalemate between Vaz and the majority party PAIGC ensued.
The country went through years with no new legislation being passed.
Regional bloc ECOWAS stepped in as mediator for the crisis.
The French news agency AFP says Guinea-Bissau's 1.8 million population also has "to contend with a political elite that systematically loots the country's wealth."
The former Portuguese colony is one of the poorest countries in the world.