Guinea Bissau’s incumbent president, Jose Mario Vaz, has conceded defeat despite what he called some irregularities in the November 24 presidential election and will cede power to the eventual winner of next month’s run-off.
By Nouah Mancaly
Vaz said he would “proudly and with a clear conscience” hand over to his eventual successor.
“I remain faithful to the ideals of peace, democracy and freedom that have always guided me and I accept all the results published by the election supervising body, the National Electoral Commission (CNE),” he said in a 15-minute address to the press in Bissau on Thursday evening.
“By passing on the torch to my successor, which is an unprecedented event in Guinea-Bissau, I will do so with pride, as it will be a milestone in Guinea-Bissau’s democracy. I am at peace with my conscience, because I did not kill, I did not steal, I did not lie, I did not torture, I did not violate any rights and I fulfilled my duty as President of the Republic,” said Mr. Vaz.
He came fourth after the first round of the presidential election with 12.41 percent of the votes.
According to preliminary results released by CNE, Vaz was largely outpaced by his two main challengers, Domingos Simoes Pereira, the candidate of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), who scored 40, 13 percent of the votes, and Umaro Sissoco Embaló, the candidate of the Movement for Democratic Power Change (Madem-G15), who polled 27.65 percent of the votes.
The incumbent president first congratulated the other 11 candidates who participated in last Sunday’s election and wished good luck to the two front runners who will head into a run-off on December 29, 2019.
However, José Mario Vaz, who was speaking from his campaign headquarters, said that “the CNE president and his team were in possession of all the data and they knew perfectly well who would really participate in this second round.”
He also deplored the fact that no one seemed to listen when he denounced some “irregularities” related in particular to the delay in the publication of the electoral register, the fact that several polling stations were out of order, and the stuffing of ballot boxes.
He made a final “call to the international community” to indicate that as a contribution “to the pacification” of Guinea-Bissau, he accepted the results of the first round of the presidential poll.
Mario Vaz also announced that he was going into business but will continue to serve his country and his compatriots.
Aged 62, José Mario Vaz had a five-year term (May 2014-June 2019) as president of Guinea-Bissau.
At the end of this term marred by several political squabbles within his party, (PAIGC) – which ended up excluding him from its ranks – and frictions with his Prime Ministers, he nevertheless continued to lead the country on an interim basis, as decided by the regional bloc (ECOWAS), pending the holding of a presidential election.
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