Guinea-Bissau president-elect sets inauguration date

BISSAU: The winner of Guinea-Bissau´s disputed presidential election, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, said Sunday he would be inaugurated on February 27 despite challenges from the party now in power. Embalo won 53.55 percent of the votes in the December 29 election, while Domingos Simoes Pereira, from Guinea-Bissau´s traditional ruling party, won 46.45 percent, according to the National Electoral Commission. Since then, Pereira has contested the result, arguing that the votes were manipulated. But Embalo, who returned to the west African nation from a tour of Africa, Europe and Asia, told media at the airport: “I will be inaugurated in a few days and the country can hope for brighter days ahead. The 47-year-old former general and prime minister deplored “strikes just about everywhere” and “salaries that are not being paid. He pledged to hold a low-key ceremony, saying that a nation which has long struggled with poverty and corruption, and has also become a transit route for South American cocaine heading to Europe, “cannot afford the luxury of a sumptuous ceremony. Guinea-Bissau has known little but coups and instability since its independence from Portugal in 1974.