Guinea-Bissau votes in presidential run-off

BISSAU – Voters went to the polls yesterday in Guinea-Bissau for a presidential run-off between two former heads of state of the coup-prone West African nation, whose veteran leader was assassinated in May.

Observers hope the new president will bring a degree of stability to the former Portuguese colony of 1,3 million people, which has suffered repeated coups since independence in 1974 and now is a haven for drug runners.Some 2 700 polling stations nationwide began opening at 07h00 and around 700 000 voters were eligible to cast ballots before they close at 17h00.Queues began to form outside polling booths on the Amilcar Cabral avenue in central Bissau as voting got under way.In the Chao Pepel district of Bissau, voters were thin on the ground, but electoral official Ankouan Lopez said: ‘There aren’t many voters because people are going to church first before coming to vote.’Two former presidents, Malam Bacai Sanha and Kumba Yala, won the biggest share of the vote in the first round on June 28. Sanha secured 39,59 per cent of the first-round ballots – a 10-point advantage over Yala.The vote was triggered by the killing of long-time president Joao Bernardo Vieira by soldiers on March 2, in an apparent revenge attack after the assassination of army chief General Batista Tagme Na Waie in a bomb attack.Guinea-Bissau has been overwhelmed by the international drugs trade, becoming a key transit point in cocaine smuggling between South America and Europe.Yala and Sanha have already faced each other in a second-round runoff for Guinea-Bissau’s presidency in 2000, when Yala emerged victorious. – Nampa-AFP