Bissau’s Gomes Junior wins disputed first-round vote

BISSAU (Reuters) – Former Guinea Bissau prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior scored 49 percent in Sunday’s presidential election, poll authorities said on Wednesday, well ahead of his main rival but just short of the absolute majority needed to avoid a second round.

 

But runner-up Kumba Yala, an ex-president who scored 23 percent according to preliminary results read out by the election commission, immediately demanded the poll be annulled on grounds of fraud.

“We are not changing our position,” Yala spokesman Florentino Mendes Pereira said after the opposition alleged the election in the restive West African state was marred by fraud and should be scrapped.

“We can’t go on to the second round when there is massive fraud,” he said, repeating opposition complaints that there had been more than 25,000 cases of fraudulent votes being cast around the country of 1.6 million people.

Gomes Junior told a news conference that if Yala did not want to compete in the run-off, “I’ll proclaim myself president tomorrow.”

 

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