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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Haitians formed long lines outside polling stations Tuesday amid heavy security to vote in Haiti's first presidential election in nearly six years, a vote authorities called a key step toward steering this bloodied, impoverished nation away from total collapse.

Clutching newly minted voter ID cards, about 1,000 people lined up before dawn at a polling station in the Port-au-Prince area of Delmas, waiting for electoral officials to open the doors. Hundreds of people waited along rutted, trash-strewn streets in the downtown slum of Bel-Air, some pushing and shoving to keep their place in line.

Polls were scheduled to open at 6 a.m. EST, but several voting stations in the capital had yet to open by then.

"Haitians are mobilized for change, that's why there's so many people in the street this morning," said Jean Joseph, 44, on his way to vote.

Helicopters, trucks and even mules ferried election supplies into remote corners of the Caribbean nation on Monday. U.N. officials said that 92 percent of the 3.5 million people who registered to vote had collected their identity cards, a sign that turnout could be high.

"Haiti's future depends on this vote," said Jacques Bernard, director general of the electoral council. "Good elections are the only solution to saving our nation."

Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organization of American States, told The Associated Press late Monday he expected a strong participation.

"We have seen ... a lot of enthusiasm to vote," he said in Port-au-Prince, the capital of this nation of 8 million people.

The front-runner is former president Rene Preval, a 63-year-old agronomist who led the country from 1996-2001. Other top contenders among the 33 candidates are businessman Charles Henry Baker and Leslie Manigat, who was president for five months in 1988 until a coup ousted him.

If no candidate wins a majority, a March 19 runoff would be held between the top two candidates. Hundreds of candidates are also running for 129 parliamentary seats.

In the downtown slum of Bel-Air, walls and shops once adorn with images of Aristide are now plastered in a sea of yellow posters bearing Preval's face.

Aristide, once backed by the United States and seen as a beacon of hope in this desperate country, was driven from power after being accused of corruption and of using thugs to attack his opponents. He lives in exile in South Africa, while an interim government has led the country for the last two years.

However he still enjoys wide support, and many Haitians believe that if Preval wins, he will bring Aristide back.

James Jeudi, a 21-year-old unemployed laborer, said Monday he'd still like the ousted leader to return, but called voting for Preval the next best alternative.

"We loved Aristide, but Aristide is there in exile, and we are here. We have to carry on," Jeudi said. "Preval knows the suffering of the poor, and that is why we're going to vote for him."

Bernard defended a decision not to put voting stations inside the sprawling, seaside slum of Cite Soleil, a base for armed gangs loyal to Aristide who are blamed for a wave of kidnappings in the capital. Residents of Cite Soleil accused officials of trying to disenfranchise them, but officials say they can vote at polling stations outside the slum.

"It's a moral question. I couldn't ask an election worker to go into an area that I myself wouldn't go," Bernard said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the 9,300-member U.N. peacekeeping force "will do all it can to support the Haitian authorities in ensuring that the vote is held in freedom and safety."

Underscoring the difficulty of holding elections in a country with a ruined infrastructure -- including roads -- mules transported some election materials to areas where U.N. helicopters were unable to land. The vote has been postponed four times since October because of security problems and trouble distributing elections materials.

The election has been billed as a move to restore democracy, but it is a daunting task. With decades of brain drain, capital flight and crippling judicial, security, health and corruption problems, the Western hemisphere's poorest nation needs more than a quick electoral fix, experts say.

The 70-mile drive from Port-au-Prince to the northern town of Gonaives takes four hours, and the roads are far from Haiti's worst.

Deforestation is widespread, leaving topsoil vulnerable, and when hurricanes hit, catastrophic floods often to follow. Land plots grow smaller as the population increases, and poor farming methods exhaust an already-tired soil.

Haiti has long suffered from oppression and instability. The country was ruled for nearly 30 years by dictators Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, who fled to France in 1986 amid allegations of human rights violations, mass killings and stealing millions from the national treasury.

Efforts to restore democracy since then have faltered. Soldiers aborted Haiti's first attempt at free elections in a bloodbath in 1987. Aristide, then a priest who preached rebellion to slum-dwelling Haitians, won elections in 1990 but served only seven months before the military overthrew him. Aristide was re-elected in 2000.