Guinea-Bissau

Voters go to the polls

Article published on the 2009-06-28 Latest update 2009-06-28 16:19 TU

Guinea-Bissau presidential candidate Kumba Yala attends a final campaign rally in Bissau on Saturday
(Photo: Reuters)

Polls opened on Sunday in Guinea-Bissau where 600,000 of the country's 1.3 million people are eligible to vote. Close to 3,000 voting booths are in place and they opened at seven in the morning and will stay open until five in the evening.

There are eleven candidates seeking to replace Joao Bernardo Vieira who was assassinated last March by members of the army.

Three former heads of state are running, Malam Bacai Sanha, Kumba Yala and Henrique Rosa. Sanha, a former interim-president, is running for the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which controls 67 of the 100 seats in Guinea-Bissau's parliament.

A second-round vote will be held on 28 July if necessary and 150 observers have been deployed for the first-round vote.

The election itself is costing just over five million euros, all of which has been supplied by foreign donors, and the West African regional body Ecowas has said it has paid three months of outstanding wages to the country's military.

"The great majority in the country want peace and development," says business woman Macaria Baraï from the citizen coalition group Citoyens de Bonne Volonté. "We're asking everyone to participate, to put an end to cycles of violence".

"The elections are a beginning," she says, "because if there aren't legally-constituted structures we won't be able to be work".

"We are tired of cycles of problems," she concludes.

The West African human rights group Raddho says however that "the present atmosphere of fear and terror is not a favourable one for the organisation of credible elections".