Ian Timberlake, Banda Aceh – Former separatist rebels have no alternative but to follow the political path after laying down their weapons, a key candidate backed by ex-combatants has said ahead of elections in the tsunami-ravaged Indonesian province.

Muhammad Nazar, 37, is running for the post of deputy governor in Monday's local elections, the first in which former rebels of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) have participated since last year's Helsinki accords ended three decades of war that killed nearly 15,000 people.

Nazar is teamed with candidate for governor Irwandi Yusuf, a former rebel spokesman who trained as a veterinarian.

"So there is no other choice for groups which have struggled," Nazar told AFP in an interview Sunday. "We must have control of the executive, form a local party, control the legislature... no longer with weapons."

The ballot is to choose district heads, as well as the provincial governor and deputy previously appointed by the central government in Jakarta.

Nazar called the election a precondition for continued peace, culminating in the 2009 national elections when voters will choose their provincial legislators.

In exchange for GAM's disarmament and dropping its call for independence of the resource-rich province, the government granted greater autonomy and allowed the establishment of local political parties.

"This is not to end the struggle but to alter it from an armed conflict to political institutions which are more conducive," Nazar said while taking calls on three different mobile phones, including one scuffed model which he has kept from his prison days.

Nazar was most recently released from prison in August last year after serving time for treason-related charges. He headed an organisation which called for a referendum on Aceh's future.

Barefoot and wearing jeans and a light-coloured short-sleeved shirt, Nazar expressed confidence he and his running mate can win, saying all of GAM's former district commanders, except one, are behind them.

They are competing against seven other pairs of candidates, including a duo supported by the rebels' leadership formerly exiled in Sweden. The leadership is backing Ahmad Humam Hamid and Hasbi Abdullah, but officially GAM has adopted a position of neutrality in an attempt to avoid splitting the movement.

Nazar said the differences between the ex-fighters and the leadership are just a political matter and are no threat to the peace process.

"We have determined that GAM is oriented towards peace," he said. "For the long term we don't know what will happen... but we want sustainable peace. In future we want everything institutionalized politically, whatever the people's aspirations."

There has been little trouble during the campaign despite the enormous challenges facing the province after the insurgency and the December 2004 tsunami which killed more than 168,000 people in the province.

Nazar said that if GAM members and other activists "don't want to take advantage of this momentum, I think that's funny, and it would be impossible for us to make Aceh better."