NAIROBI, Kenya - At least 15 people were killed in attacks by machete-wielding gangs on Monday as Kenyans lined-up to vote in a presidential election they hope will rebuild the nation's image after a disputed 2007 poll unleashed weeks of tribal bloodshed.

Just hours before the start of voting and with long queues across the east African country, at least nine security officers in Kenya's restive coastal region were hacked to death, and six attackers were also killed, regional police chief Aggrey Adoli said. The total toll had earlier been put at 17.

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There were two separate attacks which senior police officers blamed on a separatist movement - which, if confirmed, would suggest different motives to those that caused the post-2007 vote ethnic killings and could limit their impact.

Officials and candidates have made impassioned appeals to avoid a repeat of the tribal rampages that erupted five years ago when disputes over the poll result fuelled clashes between tribal loyalists of rival candidates.

More than 1,200 people were killed, shattering Kenya's reputation as one of Africa's most stable democracies and bringing its economy to a standstill.

As in 2007, the race has come down to a high-stakes duel between two candidates, this time between Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the loser in 2007 to outgoing President Mwai Kibaki. Both contenders will depend heavily on votes from tribal loyalists.

The United States and Western donors are worried about the stability of a nation that is an ally in the fight against militant Islam in the region but are also fretting what to do if the victor is Kenyatta, who faces charges by the International Criminal Court of orchestrating violence five years ago.

Provisional results could emerge hours after polls close at 5 p.m. local time (9 a.m. ET) although the election commission has seven days to announce the official outcome. Polls suggest the election could go to a run-off, provisionally set for April.

"If elected, we will be able to discharge our duties," said Kenyatta's running mate, William Ruto who also faces charges of crimes against humanity. "We shall cooperate with the court with a final intention of clearing our names."

'We want our own country'
One of the attacks on Monday took place outside Mombasa and another in Kilifi about 80 miles to the north. Senior police officers blamed them on a separatist movement, the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC), which wanted the national vote scrapped and a referendum on secession instead.

At the Kilifi site, Reuters footage showed a piece of paper on the ground with the words: "MRC. Coast is not Kenya. We don't want elections. We want our own country." But there was no formal claim and no independent confirmation of the assailants.

Even before the violence, many Kenyans were wary, notably in flashpoints last time. Some shopkeepers ran down stocks and some people in mixed tribal areas returned to their homelands.

Bernard Otundo, 36, queuing in Nairobi shortly before polls opened at 6 a.m. said he expected a peaceful vote.

"Some of us have been here as early as 2 a.m. this morning. I got here slightly after 3 a.m.," he said. "There have been a lot of awareness campaigns against violence and I don't think it will happen this time around, whatever the outcome."

Kenya's neighbors are watching nervously, after their economies felt the shockwaves when violence five years ago shut down trade routes running through east Africa's biggest economy. Some landlocked states have stockpiled fuel and other materials.

Adding to tension, the al Shabaab Islamist militant group battling Kenyan peacekeeping troops in Somalia, repeated calls on Nairobi to remove its forces, threatening retaliation. 

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Far-rightist Marine Le Pen threw France's presidential race wide open on Sunday by scoring nearly 20 percent in the first round -- votes that might determine the runoff between Socialist favorite Francois Hollande and conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Hollande got 27.5 percent, compared to Sarkozy's 26.6 percent, and the two will meet in a head-to-head decider on May 6.

But Le Pen's record score of 20 percent was the sensation of the night, beating her father's 2002 result and outpolling hard leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, in fourth place with 10 percent. Centrist Francois Bayrou finished fifth with nine percent.

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Le Pen, who took over the anti-immigration National Front in early 2011, wants jobs reserved for French nationals at a time when jobless claims are at a 12-year high. She also advocates abandoning the euro currency and restoring monetary policy to Paris.

Her score reflected a surge in anti-establishment populist parties in many euro zone countries from Amsterdam to Athens as austerity and the debt crisis bite.

Voter surveys show about half of her supporters would back Sarkozy in a second round and perhaps one fifth would vote for Hollande, making her a potential kingmaker in the runoff.

Jean-Marie Le Pen's 16.9 percent score in the 2002 first round caused a political earthquake, knocking then Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin out of the runoff and forcing left-wing voters to rally behind conservative Jacques Chirac.

Sarkozy, 57, has painted himself as the safest pair of hands to lead France and the euro zone in turbulent times, but Sunday's vote appeared to be a strong rejection of his flashy style as well as his economic record.

If Hollande wins on May 6, joining a small minority of left-wing governments in Europe, he has promised to lead a push for a bigger focus on growth in the euro zone, mainly by adding pro-growth clauses to a European budget discipline treaty.

The prospect of a renegotiation of the pact is causing some concern in financial markets, as is Hollande's focus on tax rises over austerity at a time when sluggish growth is threatening France's ability to meet deficit-cutting goals.

France's sickly growth, along with its stubbornly high unemployment, are major factors hampering Sarkozy's battle to win a second term, despite an energetic campaign against the blander but more popular Hollande.

Sarkozy would be the 11th euro zone leader to be swept out since the start of the bloc's debt crisis in late 2009 and the first French president to lose a re-election bid in more than 30 years. A deep dislike of a manner many see as arrogant and too informal has also driven many people to vote against him.

"France needs a radical change of direction, mainly on the economy," said Jean-Noel Harvet, a public sector worker voting earlier on Sunday in the northern town of Cambrai.

Hollande, 57, promises less drastic spending cuts than Sarkozy proposed and wants higher taxes on the wealthy to fund state-aided job creation, in particular a 75 percent upper tax rate on income above 1 million euros ($1.32 million).

He would be only France's second left-wing leader since the founding of the Fifth Republic in 1958, and its first since Francois Mitterrand, who beat incumbent Valery Giscard-d'Estaing in 1981 and ruled until 1995.

Hollande had called on his supporters to take nothing for granted, mindful of the fiasco for the left in 2002 when record abstention saw the Socialist Jospin pushed out in the first round by the elder Le Pen.

Turnout ended up at a healthy 70.6 percent three hours before polls closed, just below 73.9 percent recorded in the 2007, which was the highest in two decades.

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