Vice-President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the sole consensus candidate, billed the vote as a way to move on after months of protests against Saleh's rule, but the president's sons and nephews still command key army units and security agencies.

"Elections are the only exit route from the crisis that has buffeted Yemen for the past year," Hadi, Saleh's long-time right-hand and former army general, said after casting his vote.

Five people were killed in violence in Yemen's south yesterday, where a secessionist movement is active, a reminder of the challenges Hadi will face in taming a nation where half of the population of 23million owns a gun.

The vote will make Saleh, now in the US for more treatment of burns suffered in an assassination attempt last June, the fourth Arab autocrat in a year to be removed from power after revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.

At stake is an economy left in shambles, where 42% live on less than $2 (R15) a day and runaway inflation is driving up food and fuel prices.

"We are now declaring the end of the Ali Abdullah Saleh era and will build a new Yemen," Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakul Karman said as she waited to cast her ballot outside a university faculty in the capital Sanaa.

A high turnout was crucial to give Hadi the legitimacy he needs to carry out changes outlined in a US-backed power transfer deal brokered by Yemen's Gulf neighbours, including the drafting of a new constitution, restructuring of armed forces and multiparty elections.