Guinea-Bissau Election Marred by Assassination A presidential election that was supposed to stabilize this coup-prone nation was marred by a military assassination just hours after polls closed Sunday. Joao Biague, the director general of the judicial police, confirmed the death of Samba Diallo, the former head of military intelligence. Biague told the private radio station Pindjiguiti FM late Sunday that the police were investigating Diallo's death and will bring those responsible to justice. Few details were available on Monday, but a soldier who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press said that Diallo had received a late-night telephone call. When he walked outside in the Pelum neighborhood to take the call, armed men were waiting for him. They cut him down in a hail of gunfire, the soldier said. A woman fills out her presidential ballot behind a privacy screen, at a polling station in Bissau, Guinea-Bissau, Sunday, March 18, 2012. It was unclear if the assassination is linked to Sunday's presidential election, an emergency ballot that was called after the death on Jan. 9 of the country's former leader, Malam Bacai Sanha, a 64-year-old diabetic who died in France after multiple hospitalizations abroad. Sanha came to power in another emergency election in 2009, organized after the country's longtime ruler Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira was assassinated inside his home. Head of the election commission Desejado Lima Da Costa held a press conference Monday, hours after meeting with the head of the armed forces, Lt. Gen. Antonio Indjai. Da Costa told reporters that the army chief had given him his assurances that the military will continue to secure the vote until the end of the electoral process. He also said that he had requested additional reinforcements to be sent to protect the electoral commission office, where ballots are being counted. Preliminary results will be released no later than March 25, Da Costa said. Nine candidates are vying for the presidency of this former Portuguese colony of 1.5 million, which has weathered successive coups and has more recently been destabilized by a booming cocaine trade. The trafficking has been made possible by the complicity of members of the government, especially the military. In 2010, the U.S. Treasury Department listed two high-ranking army figures as drug kingpins, freezing any assets they may have had in the United States.