Guinea-Bissau voters cast their ballots in a presidential runoff Sunday with the hope of ending months of political turmoil in the coup-prone West African state that is one of the world’s poorest nations.
Some 700,000 registered voters chose between two former prime ministers — Domingos Simoes Pereira, from the traditional ruling PAIGC party, and opposition figure Umaro Sissoco Embalo.
Both promised a better economic future in a country wracked by poverty, instability and corruption.
“This is the most important day. We want everything to go well,” said Dominique Zale, a security guard and father of six who spoke to AFP at a polling station near the port in the capital Bissau, where voters started lining up before dawn.
At a nearby polling station, 31-year-old economics student Jair Fernandes Martins said the next president “will have the mission to make the country work”.
“We must vote to change things,” he said.
Electoral commission head Felisberta Vaz Moura told AFP that turnout was healthy. “Voting is going well across the country with no incidents reported,” Moura said.
Nearly 70 percent of Guinea-Bissau’s 1.8 million people live on less than $1.90 a day and the small tropical country ranks 178th out of 189 on the UN Human Development Index.
It gained independence from Portugal in 1974, but has suffered a string of military coups, attempted coups and political assassinations ever since.
After the latest coup in 2012, the West African regional bloc ECOWAS deployed a nearly 700-member force to try to stabilise the fragile nation.
But observers have expressed cautious optimism that the military would not disrupt the political process this time.
“Everywhere we have been there is a good atmosphere,” said the head of the ECOWAS observation mission, former Malian Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga, in a post on Twitter.
Polls closed at 1700 GMT, with the results not expected until next week.
