(Bloomberg) -- Guinea-Bissau’s leader, Jose Mario Vaz, was eliminated from the country’s presidential election after two former prime ministers qualified for next month’s run-off vote.
Domingos Simoes Pereira, the candidate of the ruling African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde who was fired by Vaz as prime minister in 2015, won the most votes with 40% of ballots cast in the Nov. 24 election, Jose Pedro Sambu, president of the electoral commission, told reporters Wednesday. Umaro Sissoco Embalo, who served as prime minister for about two years until 2018, won 28% of the vote.
Vaz, 61, picked up 12% of ballots cast after running as an independent candidate. He has been at loggerheads with the PAIGC since his removal of Pereira as prime minister.
Many hope that the vote will restore stability in the West African nation that’s experienced nine coups and coup attempts, as well as the 2009 assassination of then-President Joao Bernardo Vieira.
When Vaz assumed office in 2014, no elected head of state had finished his mandate for two decades. While he completed his five-year term, his tenure was marred by record cocaine seizures and his power struggle with the PAIGC, the party that’s dominated politics since independence in 1974.
The second round is scheduled for Dec. 29.
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