Africa's biggest oil producer Angola goes to the polls Friday for its first peacetime elections with the ruling left-wing MPLA widely expected to keep a firm grip on power.

Six years on from a peace deal which ended a 27-year civil war that killed 500,000 people, millions remain mired in poverty despite rocketing growth brought about by the country's huge oil and diamond reserves.

Friday's vote is the first attempt to hold a poll since failed elections in 1992, and no one expects President Jose Eduardo dos Santos to lose his grip on power.

Dos Santos and his Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) was originally a Marxist-Leninist group but is now nominally social democratic.

The opposition National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA), has created little momentum since 2002, given the ruling MPLA's control of the country's huge oil and diamond reserves.

About half of the countries 17 million inhabitants have registered to vote and polls open at 7 am (0600 GMT).

The opposition UNITA and human rights groups have criticised the campaign as unfair as it has been heavily weighted in favour of the MPLA which received massive state funding and media coverage.

"The system in which these elections were organised is not fair (...) this campaign was very unbalanced," said UNITA leader Isaias Samakuva on the eve of the election.

President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who has been in power for three decades, pledged change at a final extravagant campaign rally.

"For us, change does not necessarily come about by a change of party. To change public policies which haven't worked ... We must change the members of the team who are bad," said Dos Santos, appearing to acknowledge his government's failure to distribute its massive oil wealth.

Despite the massive oil and diamond reserves fueling rapid growth, two-thirds of Angolans still live on less than two dollars a day.

Dos Santos' MPLA also says it is the only party capable of continuing the rebuilding of the capital Luanda and the provinces, where years of war destroyed communication systems and roads.

Millions of Angolans have moved to Luanda in recent years as they are unable to make a living in the outlying areas, where agriculture and small industries are virtually non-existent in areas where land mines are still a danger.

"I am looking forward to vote because I want Angola to change," 22-year-old Pai Bando told AFP Thursday.

"They (the elite) get all the money from the oil and the diamonds, they get everything and we get nothing," said the unemployed Bando.

Despite his grievances, Bando said he would not vote for the opposition UNITA, which has promised a more equal distribution of wealth because he feels only the MPLA is strong enough to make necessary changes.