EU approves fresh aid in run-up to presidential elections

The European Union (EU) has approved nine million euros (US $11.7 million) of immediate aid for Guinea-Bissau to help the country's cash-strapped government hold free and peaceful presidential elections in June, an EU source said on Tuesday. The EU has also held out the prospect of a further 9.2 million euro ($12 million) aid package to be disbursed in the second half of this year if the 19 June election takes place smoothly and the small West African country completes its return to constitutional government, the source told IRIN by telephone from Brussels. This second tranche of aid had yet to be formally approved by the European Commission, he added. The EU official said five million euros ($6.5 million) of the first tranche of funds represented an advance on the EU's annual payment for fishing rights in Guinea-Bissau's offshore waters. Government officials in the capital Bissau said this money would be used to pay government salaries which are currently a month in arrears. Civil servants, teachers, doctors, nurses, soldiers and policemen have yet to receive their salary for April and their pay cheque for May is nearly due. The EU source said a further 1.5 million euros ($2 million) would help to finance the presidential election, which is widely expected to go to a second round run-off in July. The remaining 2.5 million euros ($3.2 million) would pay for the dispatch of around 90 EU observers to monitor the presidential election in this former Portuguese colony of 1.3 million people, he added. An advance team of seven EU observers is due to arrive in Bissau on Wednesday. The aid package is the second the EU has made to Guinea-Bissau this year. France has meanwhile announced a further 500,000 euros ($650,000) of budget support to Guinea-Bissau. The government appealed for $26.5 million to help plug its gaping budget deficit at a round table conference with donors in Lisbon last February. The World Bank, Portugal and the EU have already contributed this year to an emergency fund set up by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help the government pay salaries and other essential bills. A senior Finance Ministry official told IRIN on Tuesday that since the donor conference in February, Guinea-Bissau had received pledges of $21.2 million of aid to cover its budget deficit, leaving $5.4 million still to be raised for the financial year to December 31. The run-up to the presidential election has been fraught with tension, since two of the leading contenders are controversial figures from the small country's turbulent past. One is Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, a former army general who seized power in a 1980 coup and ruled for 19 years until he was forced to quit and go into exile during the latter stages of a 1998-1999 civil war. The other is Kumba Yala, who was elected president in 2000, only to be overthrown in a bloodless coup three years later after he dismissed parliament, failed to hold fresh elections and stopped paying government salaries. Yala created a stir earlier this month when he withdrew his resignation as president and demanded his immediate reinstatement as head of state. The armed forces, which have regularly intervened in politics throughout Guinea-Bissau's history as an independent nation, have pledged to remain on the sidelines and respect the outcome of next month's presidential election. Parliamentary elections in March last year were won by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC) which went on to form the present government headed by Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior. The PAIGC, which started off as a liberation movement fighting Portuguese colonial rule, is fielding Malam Bacai Sanha as its presidential candidate. However, many of the party's old guard are openly supporting Vieira instead. Whoever wins will rely on the goodwill of international donors to help reform the armed forces, pay government salaries and revive Guinea-Bissau's shattered economy, which relies mainly on the export of cashew nuts. The country is one of the poorest in the world. It is listed 172nd out of 177 in the UNDP's Human Development Index.