Guinea-Bissau to vote in election aimed at turning page on coup
By Bate Felix and Alberto Dabo BISSAU (Reuters) - Guinea-Bissau votes on Sunday to elect a new president and lawmakers in an election meant to draw a line under a 2012 military coup that plunged the tiny West African nation into chaos. The presidential election will pit 13 candidates. The front runner for the presidency is Jose Mario Vaz, the former finance minister, according to analysts. Vaz is a candidate of the dominant party African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). Most of the presidential candidates come from a new generation of politicians. Chief amongst these is Paulo Gomes, a former World Bank executive and Harvard graduate who is seen as the strongest challenger to Vaz. Nearly 800,000 voters, most of them young and voting for the first time, are expected to take part in the ballot which could usher in new leadership in the coup-prone nation that has been dubbed Africa's first 'narco-state'. Voting starts at 0700 GMT and polls will close at 1700. "We are tired of military coups. Everybody is tired, we just want the country to get back to normal," said 77-year old retired civil servant Alexandre Vierra. The former Portuguese colony is home to 1.6 million people and covers about 10,800 square miles. Weak state institutions, along with its array of islands and unpoliced mangrove creeks, have made it a smuggler's paradise. The country was rocked two years ago when soldiers under army chief Antonio Injai stormed the presidential palace days before a second-round presidential vote. Twice delayed, Sunday's vote was organised after pressure on the transition government from the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and West African regional bloc ECOWAS, which has been bank-rolling the interim government. The poll is also seen as a last chance for Guinea-Bissau, as donors tire of turmoil in the impoverished nation. No elected president has completed a five-year term since a war of independence from Portugal ended in 1976. Post-election stability could help attract investors to the country's untapped mineral resources, including bauxite, phosphate and offshore oil and also unlock 110 million euros in European Union aid, frozen after a 2011 military uprising. Political parties wrapped up three weeks of campaigning in carnival style on Friday with rallies in the pot-holed streets and main square of the rundown capital. Rival political supporters crowded atop trucks, lorries and buses, competing to out-chant one another with music blaring from sound systems. Vaz's candidacy is clouded by accusations from Bissau's attorney general of suspected involvement in the embezzlement of a $12.5 million budget grant from Angola. Vaz denies wrongdoing. The PAIGC party machinery makes it likely to win the parliamentary ballot but Vaz's victory is far from certain given anger at traditional parties and a strong challenge from Gomes. Another independent candidate, Nuno Gomes Nabian, the former chair of Bissau's civil aviation agency who comes from the Balanta ethnic group, has the support of the army. "If we win, we will make sure that we respect the military, but we must also make sure that they respect us," Vaz told several thousand supporters at the rally.
