Campaigning starts Saturday in Guinea-Bissau some three weeks ahead of legislative and presidential elections likely to be dominated by incumbent leader Umaro Sissoco Embalo, after the main opposition was disqualified.

For the first time in the west African country’s history, the PAIGC party, which led the former Portuguese colony to independence in 1974, will be conspicuously absent from the ballot.

So too will the Pai Terra Ranka coalition, which includes around 10 political parties including PAIGC and is led by Embalo arch-rival Domingos Simoes Pereira, who is also disqualified.

Pereira, Pai Terra Ranka and PAIGC were struck from the final list of parties and candidates published in October by Guinea-Bissau’s Supreme Court, which said they had filed their official applications too la

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