The small West African nation of Guinea-Bissau heads to the polls on Sunday to replace its assassinated President Joao Bernardo Vieira. President Vieira was shot dead in March in apparent revenge for the killing of the head of the army the previous day. Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony and one of the world’s poorest nations, has become a key transfer point in the global cocaine trade.

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Voters in Guinea-Bissau go the polls on Sunday to elect a new president of the West African state, which has been weakened by military rivalries, ethnic divisions and drug gangs.

Around 600,000 people are eligible to cast their vote to choose between eleven candidates, who are vying to replace the slain President Joao Bernardo Vieira.

Vieira was shot dead by soldiers in March in apparent revenge for the killing of the head of the army. One top contender was also killed during the election campaign.

Polling stations open at 7am (0700 GMT) and close at 5pm.

The vote is a test not only for the country of around 1.6 million people, but for a region worried at the retreat of democracy after coups in Guinea and Mauritania and a deepening political crisis in Niger.

“The real test for Guinea-Bissau is not whether the election is held peacefully, but whether state institutions have the capacity to prevent the country from sliding into chaos in the aftermath,” said Kissy Agyeman-Togobo of IHS Global Insight.

“The military has been far too dominant in Bissau-Guinean politics to date, so there is a real need for the international community to offer support for capacity building.”

‘Peace and justice’

The three front-runners all pledge peace and justice.

The biggest party in parliament, the PAIGC, is represented by Malam Bacai Sanha, interim president from 1999-2000 after a coup and brief civil war.

Former President Koumba Yala, overthrown in a 2003 coup, is also expected to do well. The former philosophy professor has the backing of the biggest tribe, the Balante.

Henrique Pereira Rosa, standing as an independent, served as interim president between the overthrow of Yalla and the 2005 election won by Vieira.

If no candidate wins an outright victory in the ballot, a second round will be held.

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Mohammed Al Gharani was the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay.

Now, seven years later, he has returned to Chad, his country of origin, after being freed and is adjusting to life without the fear of being brutalised.

Al Gharani spoke to Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Vall about his first days of freedom and the abuse he had endured at Guantanamo.

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Albanians go to the polls on Sunday to elect a new parliament. The vote is seen as a test of the Balkan state’s readiness for EU membership. Albania is one of Europe’s poorest countries and its current leader, Prime Minister Sali Berisha, has been accused of corruption. Al Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips reports from Tirana where it is a tight race between two parties.

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Sunday’s vote in the former communist state will be closely monitored by some 400 foreign observers, especially since it is considered a key test for Albania’s European Union membership bid.

Ahead of Albania’s parliamentary elections, both US and EU diplomats urged the small Balkan state to hold fair elections and clear the path for closer links with the West.

“Anything less than that would be a step back,” the American ambassador to Tirana John Withers warned. “In all the previous elections, the required standards were not met. The manipulating practices of the past should not be repeated.”

Campaign marred by violence
Sweden, which assumes the rotating EU presidency on July 1, has said that Albania’s EU membership would have better prospects if the poll goes smoothly. However, the campaign has already been marred by violence with two election-related deaths.

There is also a major administrative problem affecting more than 250,000 voters who lack modern passports or identity cards. This has led to complaints by the opposition which says that more 10 percent of Albanians will be denied their right to vote on Sunday because they lack proper identification.

Opinion polls suggest that the ruling bloc of conservative Prime Minister Sali Berisha’s Democratic Party has a slight lead on the opposition rivals led by the Tirana Mayor Edi Rama’s Socialists.

Tight race expected
Berisha has been the country’s dominant political figure since the fall of Communism fall in 1991. The 65 year old has campaigned with promises of quick EU accession and improving the infrastructure and living conditions.

Edi Rama, who appears to be more popular among Albania’s younger voters, has promised to get rid of what he describes as Berisha’s nepotist structures in the administration, pledging to do more for Albania’s poor.

With analysts predicting a close race, it might well be the smaller players – the Socialist Movement for Integration (LSI) and the Christian Democrats – that tip the scales in the final election outcome.

Some 3.1 million Albanians are eligible to vote on Sunday. They will cast ballots for 140 legislators, at least 30 per cent of whom must be women. The vote will be monitored by some 400 foreign and 2,500 election observers.

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Karachi, Pakistan’s financial capital, is a city of 18 million people, where traditional ethnic tensions have always been high.

But in recent weeks, those tensions have turned into armed clashes, with officials warning that the Taliban might use the city as a financial base to fund their activities.

As Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan reports, some residents say a political solution is the only way to halt the violence and unite the city.

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Reese Erlich is the author of The Iran Agenda. Reese Erlich reports regularly for National Public Radio, Marketplace Radio, Latino USA, Radio Deutche Welle, Australian Broadcasting Corp. Radio, and Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Radio. He also writes for San Francisco Chronicle, St. Petersburg Times, and Christian Science Monitor. Mr. Erlich has been a media critic for San Francisco’s KQED-FM (NPR affiliate) since 1988. Having recently returned from Iran, he sits down with Paul Jay of the Real News. In his analysis, Mr. Erlich finds that the protests in Iran were an authentic spontaneous popular revolt.

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