WAfrican leaders urge respect for constitutions

AFRICA: West African leaders pledged support on Monday for Guinea-Bissau ahead of elections meant to steer it out of a political crisis and urged peers in countries including Guinea and Niger to respect constitutional order.

Heads of state and government from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) met in Nigeria's capital Abuja to discuss a series of challenges to political stability in the least developed region of the world's poorest continent.

Until last year, the international community and investors had believed the area was emerging from decades of volatility, but a succession of coups, attacks and attempts by leaders to extend their rule have tarnished its democratic credentials.

Guinea-Bissau, which has been hit by a series of political assassinations and which is due to hold elections on June 28, was at the top of the agenda.

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, who holds the rotating ECOWAS chairmanship, paid three months salary arrears to the armed forces in Bissau and donated vehicles and equipment for the elections, according to a draft ECOWAS communique Abuja, j Tuesday,

Reuters