Bissau, Guinea-Bissau  - Guinea Bissau's former ruling party the PAIGC has won a parliamentary majority in elections seen as crucial for bringing stability to the tiny West African nation, an election monitoring official said Friday.

Javier Gutierrez, spokesperson for the European Union election monitoring mission that observed last Sunday's polls, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that provisional results showed the PAIGC scooped 67 seats out of an possible 100.

The previous coalition government fell apart in August when the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde), which had 45 seats in parliament, abandoned a national stability pact.

Nairobi/Bissau - Guinea Bissau goes to the polls Sunday in parliamentary elections the international community hopes will help turn the tide on South American cocaine-traffickers using the tiny West African nation as a hub to bring their drugs into Europe.

The nation has struggled with coups and uprisings since its independence from Portugal in 1974, and is still recovering from the 1998-9 civil war that took out much of its infrastructure.

Bissau - Tiny West African nation Guinea Bissau has arrested the head of its navy after he allegedly telephoned senior officers and asked them to help overthrow President Joao Bernardo Vieira, reports said.

"We have foiled a coup attempt that was to have been carried out early on Thursday by a group of officers led by Rear Admiral Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto, head of the navy," the BBC reported army spokesman Col Arsenio Balde as telling reporters late Friday in Bissau.

Balde said that Na Tchuto, who is under house arrest, was turned in by senior army officers after he asked them to join the coup attempt.

Guinea Bissau is currently in the grip of political turmoil after President Vieira dissolved parliament earlier this week.