By Guillaume Klein

JUBA, Apr 15, 2010 (AFP) - His face appears among many election campaign posters across Juba, the capital of south Sudan, even though the legendary ex-rebel chief John Garang died in 2005.

The death of the founder of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) in a helicopter crash provoked bloody riots just months after he signed a peace accord to end Africa's longest running civil war.

Garang's legacy has burdened his successor, Salva Kiir, who hopes to be re-elected president of the autonomous south in this week's elections but does not appear to take umbrage at the situation.

At a reception on Monday for Jimmy Carter, the former US president who heads an election observer mission, Kiir paused while showing him the portraits that adorn the main office wall of the presidential palace.

"And here is our great leader," said Kiir.

"I know, I know," replied Carter.

Two days later at Bor, Garang's hometown about 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of Juba, the reaction of residents seems to confirm the myth is intact.

"Of course... we miss him. When your father passes away, it's normal to miss him, right?", says Deng Deng, 27, who keeps watch at the tent that serves as a loading room at the local airfield.

"He brought us peace... I remember (the day he died) very well, but I can't tell you how I learned. There was so much (noise) about it in the streets, on the radio," he recalled.

A few hundred metres (yards) from the airfield's dirt runway, at the doorstep of a house of mud and straw, Paul Machak was playing draughts with two friends in the presence of a sleepy policeman.

"He struggled for unity, for our freedom, against the marginalisation of black people," Machak declared when asked about Garang.

But the player opposite interjected briefly.

"They idealise him," muttered the elderly man who declined to be identified.

The north-south war killed an estimated two million people and caused twice as many to flee their homes during a 22-year period marked by Garang founding the SPLM in 1983 and his death 22 years later.

But Machak, who studied in the United States, still retains obviously good memories.

"He was a good man, an educated man," he said.

"He would have been the best candidate for all the Sudanese, and even for all Africa!"

The peace accords signed by Garang provided for the presidential, parliamentary and state elections that wrapped up on Thursday after five days of voting.

Their other central plank is a January 2011 referendum on the independence of south Sudan, but Garang, unlike his successor Kiir, was seen as someone who favoured the country's unity.

Deng Deng refused to make any comparisons, however.

"Salva Kiir? I don't know if he is greater. Of course he's a good leader... he's following the steps of John Garang."

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Copyright AFP 2010.