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Jose Mario Vaz wins Guinea-Bissau election

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AFP Bissau
Guinea-Bissau's former finance minister Jose Mario Vaz scored a resounding victory today in a presidential election seen as a key test of stability in the coup-prone country.

The candidate of the west African nation's dominant party won an overwhelming 62 per cent of the vote against independent rival Nuno Gomes Nabiam, the election commission said.

If the result is confirmed by the supreme court, the 57-year-old will be named the first elected leader since the army mutinied in 2012, plunging into chaos a state already in the grip of powerful cocaine cartels and beset by political violence.

Jose Ramos-Horta, the head of the country's United Nations mission, called on the international community to offer emergency financial support, in particular to pay late public sector wages.
 

He warned that "the restoration of the constitutional order could collapse very quickly", with "more disastrous consequences than the country has ever seen", if cash wasn't forthcoming.

"The end of the transition marks a new stage which demands our constant commitment to help Bissau-Guineans work on the country's serious political, social and economic problems," he told a meeting of the Security Council.

Vaz, of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), won the first round on April 13 but failed to get an outright majority, pitting him against Nabiam in a head-to-head second round on Sunday.

Already mired in poverty, the fragile nation of 1.6 million has been stagnating for two years under the rule of an army-backed transitional government, with the economy anaemic and endemic corruption fuelled by rampant drug trafficking.

The election was seen as a key test of its progress after the 2012 coup. But turnout in the run-off, at 78 per cent of an electorate of 800,000 people, was some way short of the 89 per cent participation rate in the first round.

A large crowd of activists converged on the PAIGC headquarters in downtown Bissau waving banners and wearing t-shirts bearing Vaz's image amid a chorus of honking horns.

Guinea-Bissau's army was out in force, patrolling the streets alongside troops from a multi-national force sent by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

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First Published: May 21 2014 | 2:04 AM IST

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