Members of France's ruling Union for a Popular Movement party (UMP) began to vote on Nicolas Sarkozy, the only candidate for the party's nomination in 2007 presidential election on Tuesday.

Sarkozy, who is the interior minister and the president of UMP, has become the only candidate for the party's nomination, after the defense minister Michele Alliot-Marie announced that she would not seek the "financial and logistical" support of the party.

"We have 336,838 members who started to vote from this morning to nominate the candidate," the party's spokeswoman Valerie Pecresse said in a weekly news release.

The party members would vote exclusively by internet before 10 a.m. January 14. The UMP has installed "750 electronic voting offices", Pecresse added.

According to Pecresse, about 6,500 members had already voted before Tuesday noon.

The results of vote would be made public during the UMP congress in Porte de Versaille in Paris on January 14, when between 30,000 and 50,000 people are expected to attend the meeting.

Source: Xinhua