Parliamentary elections expected in six months

A committee of political leaders and military officers was putting the final touches on Thursday to plans for a transitional civilian government charged with holding fresh parliamentary elections in Guinea-Bissau early next year The presidents of Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal meanwhile arrived in this small West African country for talks with General Verissimo Correia Seabra, who seized power in a bloodless coup last Sunday. They were also due to meet Kumba Yala, the elected civilian head of state who he deposed. Following negotiations with a delegation of ministers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Kumba Yala issued a statement on Wednesday night announcing his resignation, urging the creation of a government of national unity to steer Guinea-Bissau out of its crisis, and calling on the military to return to their barracks. Sources close to the ad-hoc commission appointed by Correia Seabra to work out how this former Portuguese colony should be governed in the immediate future, told IRIN it would recommend the appointment of a broad-based civilian government to rule the country for up to six months until fresh parliamentary elections were held. Correia Seabra, the chief of staff of the armed forces, would remain head of state until then, they added. The Portuguese news agency Lusa and Portuguese state radio (RDP) quoted Carlos Vamain, a lawyer who forms part of ad hoc commission as saying presidential elections would be held six or 12 months after the vote for a new legislature. Lusa and RDP said an agreement between the armed forces and Guinea-Bissau's main political parties setting out how the country would be governed until then would be signed on Friday in the presence of presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal and John Kufuor of Ghana. Correia Seabra's decision to cut short the chaotic rule of Kumba Yala was greeted with widespread relief by Guinea-Bissau's 1.3 million people. The deposed head of state dissolved parliament in November last year and had repeatedly delayed elections for a new legislature. He had also sacked three supreme judges and had left civil servants unpaid for several months. Political sources told IRIN that Helder Vaz, the leader of the United Platform group of opposition parties, was likely to be named prime minister of the transitional government However, they said the 17-member ad-hoc commission chaired by Jose Camnate Na Bissign, the Roman Catholic bishop of Bissau, had only discussed the structure of the new transitional government and its terms of reference. It had not discussed who would fill particular posts. The sources said the new government would be accountable to a Transitional National Council, a sort of temporary parliament comprising representatives of all the country's main political parties.