GUINEA-BISSAU: Vieira scores narrow victory over Bacai Sanha in presidential election

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

BISSAU, 28 Jul 2005 (IRIN) - Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, the former military ruler of Guinea-Bissau, scored a narrow victory over Malam Bacai Sanha, the candidate of the ruling PAIGC party, in the second round of the country's presidential election, according to provisional results released on Thursday.

Malam Mane, the chairman of the National Electoral Commission, said Vieira, of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), won a majority of 52 percent, with 216,167 votes in last Sunday's ballot.

Bacai Sanha trailed over 19,000 votes behind him with 48 percent and 196,759 votes, he added.

Vieira, who ruled this small West African country from 1980 to 1999, told reporters: "The results just announced demonstrate my unquestionable victory."

But Bacai Sanha's campaign manager, Serifo Nhamado, said there were "indications of fraud" in some parts of the country.

He demanded a fresh vote in the capital Bissau, Biombo district immediately to the west of the city and Bafata district, 130 km to the east.

However, political analysts said it was unlikely that the National Electoral Commission would agree to this request.

Eight teams of international observers, including an 80-strong mission from the European Union, issued a joint statement on Monday saying the second round poll had been "free, fair and transparent," just like the first.

Bacai Sanha was the front runner in the first round of the presidential election on 19 June, winning over 35 percent of the vote, leaving Vieira in second place with 29 percent.

But Vieira subsequently picked up the support of former president Kumba Yala, who was deposed in a bloodless coup in September 2003.

Yala, who leads the largest opposition party in parliament and commands strong support from the Balanta, the largest ethnic group in this small West African country, came third in the first round ballot with 25 percent and was forced to drop out of the presidential race.

The atmosphere in Bissau was tense on Thursday morning. Thousands of Vieira's supporters gathered outside his campaign headquarters in the city centre, dancing and singing to celebrate their candidate's victory, while a rival crowd of Bacai Sanha's supporters gathered outside the nearby headquarters of the PAIGC.

At one point the rival factions threw stones and bottles at each other, but police intervened to keep the two sides apart and by mid-afternoon the crowds had drifted away, except for a group of several hundred who continued to celebrate outside Vieira's campaign headquarters.

Bacai Sanha, who served as interim president for nine months after Vieira was deposed during a civil war in 1999, appealed for calm.

Addressing several hundred of his supporters at the PAIGC headquarters, he said: " I appeal to all my supporters to remain calm and serene because I, Malam Bacai, am against violence." But he added; "I will defend what is ours to the ultimate consequences."

The presidential election was supposed to set the seal on Guinea-Bissau's return to constitutional government after a civil war in 1998-1999 that was followed by several years of political instability and administrative chaos.

However, Vieira's victory is likely to trigger the resignation of the present PAIGC government, which came to power following parliamentary elections last year, and raise fresh doubts about the loyalty of the armed forces.

Reacting to the news that Yala had decided to support Vieira in the second round of the presidential election, Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior said earlier this month: "If Nino Vieira wins the election I am going to resign because I will never co-habit with a bandit and mercenary who betrayed his own people."

The PAIGC controls 45 of the 100 seats in parliament, but may well split after Vieira assumes power, with a large faction of the party defecting to the newly elected head of state.

Vieira began life as a guerrilla commander in the PAIGC when it was still a liberation movement fighting Portuguese colonial rule and has been closely associated with the party for most of his political career.

After independence in 1974 Vieira became a general in the army. He seized power in a 1980 coup and assumed the leadership of the PAIGC, through which he ruled Guinea-Bissau until his overthrow 19 years later.

Since then, Vieira, 67, has lived in exile in Portugal.

However, when he announced in April that he planned to make a political comeback, several senior figures in the PAIGC rallied to his cause.

Last May, the party's powerful central committee suspended 37 of its 351 members because they had chosen to openly support Vieira in the presidential election, instead of Bacai Sanha, the PAIGC's official candidate.

Vieira's election victory may also strain the continued loyalty of the army to Guinea-Bissau's elected government.

Although Vieira himself has a military background, he is viewed with suspicion by the Balanta ethnic group, which provides the backbone of the army and the present military leadership.

During his first two decades in power, Vieira, who comes from the small Papel ethnic group, gained a reputation as a persecutor of the Balanta, particularly after he executed six Balanta officers in 1985 for planning a coup against him. Several dozen other soldiers were reported to have been killed secretly for their part in the alleged conspiracy.

Finally, Vieira's return to power is likely to bring a shift in the regional balance of power.

During his previous government, separatist guerrillas in Senegal's southern Casamance region were able to operate from safe havens across the border in northern Guinea-Bissau.

These were shut down promptly when Yala was elected president in 2000. The broad-based transitional government formed following Yala's overthrow in 2003 was careful to keep on good terms with the authorities in Dakar.

However, Vieira has closer links with President Lansana Conte of Guinea-Bissau's southern neighbour, Guinea-Conakry. Conte lent Vieira a Guinean military helicopter to fly home in when he first returned from exile in April to register himself as a voter.

Throughout his election campaign, Vieira has tried to put behind him the violent legacy of his past, projecting himself as a figure of national unity who will promote economic development and rebuild Guinea-Bissau's shattered infrastructure.

On Thursday he said; "Guinea-Bissau is going to change for the better. Our state will serve and protect the sacred rights of every man, woman and child."

In a conciliatory gesture to his defeated rival, Vieira added: "I congratulate Mr Malam Bacai Sanha, whom I consider a democrat and a man whose capacities will always be at the service of Guinea-Bissau and the Guinean people."

The National Electoral Commission is bound by law to issue the final results of the election by August 3, 10 days after the second round vote on 24 July.

[ENDS]