Guinea-Bissau votes, hopes for stability
Source: Agencies |
March 19, 2012, Monday
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FOR the second time in two years, voters in Guinea-Bissau headed to the polls yesterday to choose a president for their small, coup-prone nation, hoping that this time their leader will bring stability and much-needed development.
In 2009, Guinea-Bissau held an emergency election after the assassination of longtime President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira. Newly elected leader Malam Bacai Sanha spent the better part of his term shuttling between hospitals to treat a mysterious illness. He died in January, prompting the current election.
Yesterday's race had nine candidates, five of whom ran in the 2009 election.
"Really it's the same thing all over again," said Ousmane Bah, a 35-year-old mason, as he waited to vote at a school in Bissau. "We're going through the same steps. There's no real change."
Besides numerous coups, this former Portuguese colony has been destabilized by a booming drug trade. Cocaine is smuggled across the Atlantic from South America in boats and planes that dock on Guinea-Bissau's archipelago of virgin islands. The drugs are carried north to Europe by drug mules who board commercial flights, as well as by boat.
Experts believe the traffickers have bought off key members of the government, especially the military, in order to gain safe passage. In 2010, the US Treasury Department declared two high-ranking officers were drug kingpins and froze any assets they had in the United States.
"We want to give people hope who have lost hope, and intensify the combat against corruption and against the drug traffickers," said Arthur Sagna, deputy campaign manager for candidate Kumba Yala, a former president who was overthrown in a 2003 coup.
In 2009, Guinea-Bissau held an emergency election after the assassination of longtime President Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira. Newly elected leader Malam Bacai Sanha spent the better part of his term shuttling between hospitals to treat a mysterious illness. He died in January, prompting the current election.
Yesterday's race had nine candidates, five of whom ran in the 2009 election.
"Really it's the same thing all over again," said Ousmane Bah, a 35-year-old mason, as he waited to vote at a school in Bissau. "We're going through the same steps. There's no real change."
Besides numerous coups, this former Portuguese colony has been destabilized by a booming drug trade. Cocaine is smuggled across the Atlantic from South America in boats and planes that dock on Guinea-Bissau's archipelago of virgin islands. The drugs are carried north to Europe by drug mules who board commercial flights, as well as by boat.
Experts believe the traffickers have bought off key members of the government, especially the military, in order to gain safe passage. In 2010, the US Treasury Department declared two high-ranking officers were drug kingpins and froze any assets they had in the United States.
"We want to give people hope who have lost hope, and intensify the combat against corruption and against the drug traffickers," said Arthur Sagna, deputy campaign manager for candidate Kumba Yala, a former president who was overthrown in a 2003 coup.
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