Army officers in Guinea-Bissau seized power on Wednesday (26) through a coup d’état, following a shooting that lasted about half an hour, according to a statement from the Guinean Armed Forces read on state television TGB by the spokesman for the Military High Command, Dinis N’Tchama, who announced that soldiers have taken control of the country.
The statement says that “the top military leadership of the various branches of the Armed Forces has created the Military High Command for the restoration of national security and public order” and that it “has just assumed full powers of the State of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau”, adding that the army has removed the President of the Republic, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and closed “until further notice, all the institutions of the country”.
According to N’Tchama, “the activities of all media outlets” have been suspended, and the military also decided to “immediately halt the ongoing electoral process”. They have also closed all borders—land, sea and airspace—and imposed “a curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., until the necessary conditions are restored to return to constitutional normality”.
In the declaration, the military leader states that this is a response “to the discovery of an ongoing plan to destabilise the country”, allegedly involving “some national politicians with the participation of known local and foreign drug barons”. According to the military, the operation involved an “attempt to manipulate the electoral results” of Sunday’s (23) general elections, whose announcement had been scheduled for Thursday (27).
The Military High Command added that “a stockpile of war weapons” intended “to carry out this plan” was discovered by the State Intelligence Service. The body will exercise executive power “until the entire situation is duly clarified and conditions are restored for the full return to constitutional normality”, calling “for calm, citizens’ cooperation and everyone’s understanding in the face of what is described as a serious situation imposed by a national emergency”.
This ongoing coup in Guinea-Bissau comes after gunfire from light and heavy weapons was heard in central Bissau, the country’s capital.
Election observation missions from the African Union and the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) had stated that the electoral process took place in an “orderly and organised” manner, urging respect for the will of voters and democratic principles, in their preliminary assessment earlier this week.
On Tuesday, after candidate Fernando Dias da Costa had declared himself the winner of the elections without the need for a runoff, the spokesman for Sissoco Embaló, Óscar Barbosa, also said that “everything indicates there will be no second round”, though he did not provide details on the outgoing president’s results in Sunday’s vote.
In remarks made before the ongoing coup, Óscar Barbosa urged Guineans “to remain calm and wait for the release of the election results” by the National Electoral Commission (CNE), scheduled for Thursday.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that constitutional normality had been interrupted and called for calm. Faced with “events that have interrupted constitutional normality in Guinea-Bissau”, the Portuguese Government urged all parties to refrain from any form of institutional or civil violence and called for “the regular functioning of institutions to resume, so that the vote counting and proclamation of results may be concluded”.
Source: Lusa
