Presidential elections are set to hold in Guinea-Bissau on the 24th of November 2019, with a second-round planned for 29 December if no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes in the first round.
Vaz Does Not Want To Leave
About nineteen people have expressed interest in the November 24 polls, including incumbent President Jose Mario Vaz who has been in office since 2014. This year, however, he will be running as an independent candidate as he has been excluded from the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) and failed to be nominated in the opposition party, Madem.
Blast from the Past
Domingos Simoes Pereira, head of the PAIGC, will be running for the presidency on the PAIGC ticket, instead. This has been perceived as retaliation at President Vaz for refusing to declare him Prime Minister even after winning a PAIGC majority of 54 out of parliament’s 102 seats in 2015. Last month, Pereira led over a thousand party supporters on a march in the capital of Guinea Bissau.
How Elections work in Guinea-Bissau
Both the president and members of parliament are directly elected by voters. Voters are required to be at least 18 years old and hold Guinea-Bissau citizenship. The legislature has a total of 102 seats. 100 members are elected directly through a party-list proportional system where parties make lists of candidates to be elected and seats are distributed to each party in proportion to the number of votes the party receives during the elections.
The other 2 are reserved single-member constituency representing citizens living abroad in Africa and one for citizens living in Europe. The President is elected using the two-round system.
President Vaz ended his five-year term on 23 June but appointed a council of ministers responsible for the day-to-day running of the state, until elections in November.
