Poll results delayed until Wednesday after voting extended

The results of Guinea-Bissau’s parliamentary election will be announced on Wednesday after voting takes place at 89 polling stations in the capital Bissau which failed to open on Sunday, a spokesman for the National Electoral Commission said on Monday night. Confusion in the distribution of voting slips and ballot boxes meant that 89 of the 520 polling stations in Bissau remained closed on Sunday while the rest of the country voted. The spokesman said that following an enquiry on Monday these would open on Tuesday. Although votes were already being counted in the interior, provisional results would only be announced on Wednesday once everyone in the capital had been given a chance to take part in the election, he added. Sunday’s vote in this small West African country of 1.3 million people went off peaceably and election observers reported a high turnout. Several polling stations in Bissau ran out of voting slips and had to ask the electoral commission to send more. Although many polling stations opened late on Sunday, they were allowed to continue operating after nightfall by the light of candles and lanterns so that everyone who wanted to could vote. Three political parties and two coalitions are expected to mop up most of the 102 seats in Guinea-Bissau’s single chamber parliament. The election is a major milestone in the country’s return to constitutional rule following a bloodless coup on 14 September which ousted the chaotic regime of former president Kumba Yala. He dissolved parliament, sacked half the supreme court and indulged in endless government reshuffles while failing to pay civil servants and soldiers for months on end. The parliamentary poll will be followed by presidential elections in March next year which will complete Guinea-Bissau’s return to democracy. Zeferino Martins, the head of an observer team from the Community of Portuguese Speaking Countries, told Portuguese state radio that the election had gone well in the interior, despite “some problems in the capital.”