EU sends 100 observers to monitor presidential election

The European Union (EU) announced on Friday that it would send 100 observers to monitor Guinea-Bissau's 19 June presidential election, stressing that some of them would remain in the country for up to three months if a second round run-off vote were held in July. Foreign Minister Soares Sambu said after signing an agreement with the EU representative in Bissau, Antonio Moreira Martins, that the first EU election observers would arrive in Bissau on Tuesday. Sambu said that if the election went to a second round, some of the EU observers would stay on until the definitive final results were announced in early August. According to Guinean law, the final result of an election must be announced within two weeks of the poll. Meanwhile, a presidential spokesman announced that three West African heads of state would arrive on Saturday to discuss fears that the presidential election, which is due to complete Guinea-Bissau's democracy, could be disrupted by violence or military intervention. Joao Maria Pedro Mendes Costa, the head of protocol of Interim President Henrique Rosam, said the delegation would consist of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the current chairman of the African Union, President Mamadou Tandja of Niger, the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and President Abdoulaye Wade of neighbouring Senegal. The three heads of state would also be joined by Cellou Dalien Diallo, the prime minister of Guinea-Conakry, which borders Guinea-Bissau to the south, Mendes Costa said. On Friday a group of ECOWAS "wise men" headed by former Burkinabe interior minister Leopold Ouedraogo arrived in Bissau for consultations. Ouedraogo said ECOWAS would also send observers to monitor next month's presdential election. The international community is increasingly worried that Guinea-Bissau, which lapsed into civil war from 1998 to 1999, could suffer further upsets following the decision of two controversial former heads of state to contest the presidential election. One is former military strongman Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, who came to power in a 1980 coup and ruled the former Portuguese colony for 19 years until he was forced to quit during the latter stages of civil war. The other is Kumba Yala, a former philosophy teacher, who was elected president in 2000 only to be deposed in a bloodless coup three years later after he dismissed parliament and failed to hold new elections. Yala, who is standing as the official candidate of his Social Renovation Party (PRS), the main opposition party in parliament, caused a stir last weekend when he withdrew his resignation, submitted after the 2003 coup, and demanded to be reinstated as president immediately. The other two leading candidates in the poll are Malam Bacai Sanha, the official candidate of the ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) which won parliamentary elections held in March last year, and Francisco Fadul, the leader of the United Social Democrat Party (PUSD), the second largest opposition group in parliament. The army is dominated by members of Yala's Balanta ethnic group, but has promised to remain on the sidelines of the political debate and remain subservient to Guinea-Bissau's elected government.