Guinea-Bissau to hold elections this June

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

The prime minister of the western African country of Guinea-Bissau has announced that the country will further postpone elections until June due to increasing violence. Elections are in order to replace the former president, who was assassinated last month. Francisco Jose Fadul, the nation's former prime minister, says that he has been beaten by men that he claims were in uniform.

"Men in uniform forced their way into my house around 1:00 am (0100 GMT). They hurled abuse at me and beat me repeatedly and dragged me across the floor," said Fadul as quoted by Agence France-Presse. According to the Agence France-Presse, Amnesty International said the beating followed the arrest and torture of Pedro Infanda, a well known attorney. Infanda was detained for four days, during which he was beaten.

On March 2, renegade soldiers assassinated president Joao Bernardo Vieira, in what is considered a revenge attack after an explosion killed the president's rival, the military chief General Batista Tagme Na Wai.

"The date of 28 June is set for holding presidential elections, and all the parties, the government, the interim president and political classes are agreed," said Carlos Gomes Jr. to journalists late Tuesday.

Under the country's constitution, National Assembly speaker Raimundo Pereria became Guinea-Bissau's interim president following Vieira's death. The constitution states that polls should be held within sixty days of the president's death, however, the government has delayed the date for another sixty days following Pereria's inauguration.

Guinea-Bissau is located on the western African coast, north of Guinea and south of Senegal. It has been plagued by frequent civil conflicts and coups. The nation has requested 2.5 billion CFA francs, or US$5.01 million, from the international community to fund for the elections.

Have an opinion on this story? Share it!

Sources

"Guinea-Bissau goes to polls in June" — Daily Nation, April 1, 2009
Alberto Dabo. "Guinea-Bissau to hold presidential poll in June" — Reuters, April 1, 2009
"Guinea-Bissau delays presidential polls" — Agence France-Presse, April 1, 2009

Share this:

This page is archived, and is no longer publicly editable.

Articles presented on Wikinews reflect the specific time at which they were written and published, and do not attempt to encompass events or knowledge which occur or become known after their publication.

Got a correction? Add the template {{editprotected}} to the talk page along with your corrections, and it will be brought to the attention of the administrators.

Please note that due to our archival policy, we will not alter or update the content of articles that are archived, but will only accept requests to make grammatical and formatting corrections.

Note that some listed sources or external links may no longer be available online due to age.

The text of this article is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License