Election campaign heats up

Guinea-Bissau’s election campaign is now in full swing. The political parties are out hunting votes, but tend to be concentrating their activities outside the capital, Bissau, looking for support in the interior. In Bissau itself, the streets are full of posters put up by the rival parties. There are 12 parties and three coalitions standing in the elections. But the enthusiasm of the politicians is not necessarily shared by the general population, who tend to show more restraint. For the first time since Guinea-Bissau became a multiparty democracy, citizens are asking the parties to present electoral programmes. There seems to be a general belief that Sunday’s vote is Guinea-Bissau’s last chance to get things right, that if the population makes the wrong choice the country will never be able to overcome its problems. This is what you hear at the moment in the markets and travelling on public transport. Donors, also see the future of the country as hinging on Sunday’s vote, as they take a ‘wait and see’ approach before making any commitments to desperately needed development and regeneration projects in the battered country. “If there are fair elections then I believe the donors will come in and help. This is I believe the last chance for this country,” Abdou Dieng country director for the World Food Programme in Guinea Bissau told IRIN. Guinea-Bissau has gone through a period of sharp decline. The country has recorded negative growth rates. Poverty has increased as per capita incomes have dropped. Most of the population live on less than US$ 2 a day and women are worse off than men. The state education system has virtually collapsed in recent years. Many communities have been forced to set up their own schools. Teachers are volunteers from the community who have hopefully completed their secondary education. They are typically paid in rice, donated by parents. Indeed the country has never recovered from a civil war that ended nearly six years ago. The capital, Bissau, remains a hotch-potch of bombed out and semi-destroyed buildings. Elections are seen as an opportunity to make a fresh start in Guinea Bissau, and secure donor support for much needed development and regeneration. Close to 100 international observers will be watching the vote, including representatives from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Francophone Organisation, and the United Nations. Individual countries, including the former colonial power, Portugal, Russia, and Guinea-Bissau’s northern neighbour, The Gambia, will also have monitors in place. Returning to Bissau after his visit last year will be the Foreign Minister of East Timor, Nobel prize-winner José Ramos Horta, who is the special representative of the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP). Ramos Horta was in Bissau in August 2003, trying to help resolve the country’s political crisis, barely one month before the overthrow of former President Kumba Yala. Kumba Yala has now been banned from taking part in any political activity for the next five years. Despite this, in recent days there appears to have been a groundswell of support for a kind of Movement for Kumba Yala in several parts of the country, reflected in the votes being sought by the former president’s Party for Social Renovation (PRS). But most of the main parties in contention seem indifferent to this threat, feeling that Kumba Yala has exhausted all his political capital.