Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi pledged here in his hometown his dedication to the east African country's fast economic growth if reelected in Sunday 's national parliamentary elections.

Dressed in a gray suit, Meles cast his ballot in his hometown Adwa, about 1,000 km north of the capital, after flying nearly two hours with a chartered plane from Addis Ababa.

After voting, he told reporters that for the past years, Ethiopia has achieved a very fast economic growth, and if his party wins the elections and he is reelected, his next government will try to "sustain the rapid economic growth for the next five years."

Ethiopia, sitting on the eastern Africa bordering the Horn of Africa nation Somalia, has a population of some 74 million, most of which live on agriculture and about 85 percent live in conditions of abject poverty.

Accounting for half of GDP, 60 percent of exports, and 80 percent of total employment, Ethiopian agricultural sector suffers from frequent drought and poor cultivation practices.

Polling booths opened at 6 a.m. (0300 GMT) Sunday morning, and they are scheduled to close at 6 p.m. (1500 GMT).

Some 25 million eligible voters are expected to cast ballots in more than 38,000 polling stations across the country. Each polling station will process up to 1,500 voters.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) is widely expected to win a third five- year term, but observers say the ruling party's parliamentary majority may dwindle under challenges from opposition candidates.

Thirty-six political parties will contest places in the House of People's Representatives, or the lower house, in the elections. The governing party and affiliated parties currently hold 519 of the current 547 seats. The winning parties then elect the prime minister.

The election will be Ethiopia's third since EPRDF came to power in 1991 and the first to be held with international observers.

Meles said that he felt very proud, because he thought the holding of the third national elections and the first time with the participation of the opposition parties is a successful prove of his "fight for the Ethiopians to have the rights to make their decisions."

The May 15 contest, only Ethiopia's second real multi-party elections, is seen as a test of its progress toward democracy after centuries of feudalism and decades of administration of the ruling EPRDF party.

Ethiopia held its first democratic elections in 1995, but almost all opposition parties boycotted them.