Squatters' palace of dreams

FORGOTTEN GLORY: ONCE A GRANDE DAME, ABANDONED HOTEL NOW HOME TO ABOUT 4 000 > We're hoping this vote will lead to change, say residents wanting a better life.

In the sprawling slum of the once glorious Grande Hotel in Mozambique's city of Beira, about 4,000 people living in squalor hope that this month's election will bring change to their hard lives.

Most of the scattered election posters on the blackened walls of the gutted beachfront building call for votes for the long-ruling socialist Frelimo party at the polls held last week.

A few back the opposition centre-right Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM), which has controlled the Beira municipality for the past 20 years.

Results due on Saturday are expected to keep Frelimo in charge of the impoverished southern African nation, which it has governed since the end of Portuguese rule half a century ago.

The hotel, with sweeping views of the Indian Ocean, mirrors the desperation of Mozambique, where about 75% of the 33 million people live in poverty and the wounds of a 16-year civil war are still raw.