Guinea Bissau presidential candidates declare victory ahead of results

Guinea Bissau

Bissau –  Both the current president and the main opposition candidate in Guinea-Bissau’s presidential elections have declared victory following the first round of voting on Sunday, ahead of provisional results expected Thursday.

The West African nation’s current President Umaro Sissoco Embalo is expected to win the election, which has so far passed off peacefully but notably excluded the main opposition party PAIGC and its candidate Domingoes Simoes Pereira from the ballot.The main challenger was instead Fernando Dias, and both he and Embalo have claimed victory already, even though provisional results due to be published Thursday must first be validated by the Supreme Court on an unspecified date.”There won’t be a second round,” Embalo’s campaign spokesperson Oscar Barbosa told AFP on Tuesday, adding that the president “will have a second mandate”.

Dias also declared victory, saying in a video posted to social media: “This election has been won, it has been won in the first round.”

PAIGC, which secured Guinea-Bissau’s independence from Portugal in 1974, endorsed Dias, as did Pereira – Embalo’s arch-rival.

Pereira and PAIGC were struck from the final list of candidates and parties published in October by the Supreme Court, which said they had filed their official applications too late.

The head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) observation mission, Issufu Baba Braimah Kamara, on Tuesday praised the “peaceful conduct of the vote from the start to the end of the process”.

Speaking at a press conference, he also advised against “the announcement of uncertified results” and urged candidates’ “supporters to be patient”.

Political stability was one of the major issues in the election. Guinea-Bissau has experienced four coups since independence, the last in 2012, as well as multiple attempted coups.

Embalo was originally elected in December 2019 for a five-year term and had stated that he would only serve once.

He and Pereira faced off in the country’s last presidential election in 2019, which Pereira lost and bitterly contested.

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Source: AFP

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