By Mathieu Bonkoungou

OUAGADOUGOU, May 6 (Reuters) - People in poor Burkina Faso drifted to polling stations on Sunday to vote for a new parliament that is expected to strengthen President Blaise Compaore's grip on the arid Sahelian country's legislature.

Compaore's ruling Congress for Democracy and Progress (CDP) party won a thin majority in polls five years ago and is tipped to do better this time round after opposition desertions and Compaore's landslide 2005 re-election strengthened its hand.

"I've been around the polling stations and after an early rush it is much calmer now -- maybe because it's getting hot now," said Marin Ilboudo, mayor of the Baskuy district of the capital Ouagadougou, where the temperature was approaching 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) at noon.

Those voters turning up were spoiled for choice.

Forty-seven parties are fielding a total of 3,748 candidates for 111 national assembly seats -- although only a handful of parties have put up candidates nationwide.

Compaore has ruled the former French colony since he seized power in a 1987 coup and, like other rulers across West Africa, introduced multiparty politics under foreign pressure in the 1990s.

Burkina Faso, whose name means "Land of Upright Men", is one of the poorest countries in the world, and the opposition has accused Compaore's ruling party of using state funds to shower gifts of caps, T-shirts, bicycles, mopeds and even money on the country's 4.5 million voters in a one-sided bid to win.

"Above all we want this process to select men and women capable of dedicating themselves to making laws. I congratulate the political parties for this atmosphere of fair play," Compaore said after voting in a Ouagadougou office building.

Burkina Faso, formerly called Upper Volta after the river that flows from it through neighbouring Ghana to the Atlantic, has an illiteracy rate of over 70 percent.

Around 90 percent of the population live from subsistence farming, livestock herding or growing cotton.

The country is West Africa's top grower of cotton, but earnings have shrunk as world market prices have dropped in recent years, which farmers and the government blame on subsidies to U.S. farmers.

Many Burkinabe, as its people are called, have sought work in more affluent neighbouring Ivory Coast, cultivating cocoa in its lush forests or doing menial work in the main city, Abidjan.

Election officials say voters have been slow to pick up their voting cards, meaning Sunday's turnout could be low, but many of those who braved the heat to vote remained enthusiastic.

"I haven't missed an election since I was old enough to vote," said pensioner Fatoumata Traore.

Student Eric Sawadogo said he was voting for the first time.

"It's exciting," he said.

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