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G.Bissau junta names transition leader, defies world opinion

20 April 2012 00:31 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Guinea-Bissau’s junta on Thursday named a failed presidential candidate to head a two-year transition government after a deal with the opposition, defying world calls for a return to democracy, APA reports quoting AFP.

A joint statement by the opposition and military rulers named former parliamentary speaker and independent presidential candidate Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo to lead the interim government.

Opposition spokesman Vitor Perira said the choice had been made by "consensus".

Nhamadjo, an ally of deceased president Malam Bacai Sanha who died after a long illness in January, broke away from the ruling party to run in an election after then-prime minister Carlos Gomes was chosen as its presidential candidate.

He placed third in a first round of voting with 15.75 percent.

Gomes was the leading candidate ahead of an April 29 run-off before the electoral process was aborted by the latest military coup in the chronically unstable west African nation.

After dissolving government and announcing the two-year transition period in a deal brokered with the opposition, the military rulers on Thursday re-opened the country’s borders, airport and sea port after the April 12 coup.

This deal excludes the former ruling party which has set up an anti-putsch front with nine smaller parties which are not represented in parliament.

The grouping denounced the "irresponsible, undemocratic attitude of certain politicians hiding behind the military to access power."

It also demanded the immediate freedom of interim president Raimundo Pereira and Gomes, along with other top officials reported to be "in good health" by a Red Cross team which was able to visit them on Thursday.

As the junta strived to restore normalcy, the international community condemned its plan to remain in power and demanded a return to constitutional order.

The World Bank and the African Development Bank suspended development programmes to the chronically unstable nation, saying they were "halting our development operations, with the exception of emergency assistance".

After nearly four decades of coups, counter-coups and assassinations in the continuous power struggle between army and state since an independence war, Bissau-Guineans hold little hope that a transition will lead to stability.

"I am sceptical, I have no hope for a return to peace," said driver Alfonso Djassi. "Two years is too long, they could have had a nine-month transition period .... the situation is too complicated."

"There have been too many unsolved assassinations like that of ’Nino’," he added, referring to president Joao Bernardo Vieira who was killed by soldiers in 2009 a few hours after the army chief was blown up in his office by a remote-controlled bomb.

With petrol running low and banks still closed, life has grown harder for the average person who had hoped efforts to end a cycle of instability would be strengthened through the aborted election.

Observers said the poll was credible but the opposition denounced widespread fraud and were threatening to boycott the run-off.

With the second round vote looming, soldiers, angry over Gomes’ growing reliance on a large contingent of Angolan troops, ousted his government.

The opposition deal with the junta created a National Transition Council to oversee the transition, which will be headed by Braima Sori Djalo of the main opposition Party for Social Renewal, said Pereira.

Junta spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Daba Na Walna told reporters that the former ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) had been invited to take part in talks but had not come.

"It excluded itself," he said.

PAIGC secretary general Luis Olivares said the party had not taken part because the agreement was "unconstitutional and undemocratic".

"It’s a good agreement," said Cirilo Rodrigues, head of the Socialist Party.

"We have succeeded in taking power from the soldiers and that is the most important."

He said the agreement was in line with what the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had demanded, along with the African Union, UN and former colonial power Portugal, who wanted a return to constitutional order.

But, said a diplomat based in Bissau, said: "To say that one has respected what ECOWAS has asked is a bad interpretation of what has been said.

"ECOWAS asked for a return to constitutional order, which means returning power to those who were elected."