GUINEA-BISSAU: Prime minister says doesn't recognise new president but won't resign

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

BISSAU, 23 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - Guinea-Bissau's Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior has said he doesn't recognise newly-elected president, Joao Bernardo Vieira, but will remain in the government nonetheless, prompting many observers to wonder how the political cohabitation will work.

Former military ruler Vieira was declared the new head of state in this small West African country after winning a mid-July ballot, fending off a strong challenge from Malam Bacai Sanha, the candidate of the ruling PAIGC party to which Gomes Junior belongs.

Claiming electoral fraud, the PAIGC lodged an appeal with Guinea-Bissau's Supreme Court but that was dismissed over the weekend.

"We will continue our fight by legal means," Gomes Junior told a press conference later. "I, as president of the PAIGC, do not recognise General 'Nino' Vieira, as the president of Guinea-Bissau."

His comments came just hours after the UN Security Council issued a statement urging all parties to "accept the Court's final ruling... (and) refrain from any actions that could jeopardise the efforts towards peace and stability in Guinea-Bissau."

Gomes Junior, who became prime minister after parliamentary polls in March 2004, dubbed Vieira a "bandit and mercenary who betrayed his own people" during this year's presidential election campaign.

He threatened to resign if Vieira won but under pressure from international mediators and diplomats in Bissau, he later backed down and promised to stay on "as a source of political stability" in the former Portuguese colony.

However Gomes Junior's declaration over the weekend has raised doubts about how he can work with the new president.
Vieira's camp have so far declined comment on the prime minister's remarks.

But on Monday Fradique de Menezes, the president of fellow Lusophone country, Sao Tome, flew into Guinea-Bissau to meet the political parties. And UN officials are also concerned.

"I think everyone is worried," a senior UN official in the capital, Bissau, told IRIN on Tuesday. "These comments from the prime minister are not the kind to facilitate a good working relationship."

"We hoped that with the Supreme Court decision that would be the end of the debate. But that's not been the case," the official added. "We're still hoping that those who lost will accept the result. I don't see any other solution."

One of Guinea-Bissau's leading political analysts, Rui Landim, sees a different sole solution --- for Gomes Junior to resign.

Others like political columnist Sabino Santos, who works for the Diario de Bissau newspaper, sees both those options as possibilities but reckons that Vieira might also decide to form a new government immediately or call new elections in a few months time.

This year's 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.

[ENDS]