Coup leader sworn in as Guinea-Bissau transitional president

Bissau, Guinea-Bissau Reuters  —  General Horta Nta Na Man was sworn in as the transitional president of Guinea-Bissau on Thursday, an army statement said, one day after army officers announced they had deposed the country’s president.

The officers, referring to themselves as “The High Military Command for the Restoration of Order,” said in a televised statement on Wednesday that they had ousted President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, in the latest episode of unrest in the coup-prone country.

Provisional results had been expected on Thursday in the race between Embalo and Fernando Dias, a 47-year-old political newcomer who had emerged as Embalo’s top challenger to run the West African state, which is a hub for cocaine trafficking.

Guinea-Bissau’s opposition coalition demanded on Thursday that authorities be allowed to release results from Sunday’s presidential election.

“There is no reason to interrupt the democratic process. Dias is demanding that we make these results public,” the coalition backing Dias said in a statement sent to Reuters.

“We hope that the army officers who say they took power will let democracy continue, will let the electoral commission do its work, and respect the constitution. It’s them who are really the guarantors of peace.”

The capital Bissau was mostly quiet on Thursday, with soldiers on the streets and many residents staying indoors even after the overnight curfew lifted. Businesses and banks were closed.

‘False coup attempt’

An election commission spokesperson told Reuters that soldiers had shuttered its offices and there were no plans to go ahead with any results announcement on Thursday.

Ahead of the army announcement on Wednesday, witnesses said gunfire rang out in the capital for about an hour near the electoral commission headquarters and presidential palace.

Embalo called French media to say he had been deposed and his whereabouts were unknown on Thursday. The officers did not specify if they had taken Embalo into custody.

Dias, in a video statement on Wednesday night, accused Embalo of staging a “false coup attempt” to derail the election because he feared he would lose.

In its statement to Reuters, the coalition backing Dias demanded the release of former Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, defeated by Embalo in the 2019 election. He was detained on Wednesday, according to relatives and security sources.

Coup-prone narcotics hub

Guinea-Bissau is a small coastal nation situated between Senegal and Guinea that is a notorious hub for cocaine bound for Europe.

Under Embalo’s administration, the cocaine trade appeared to boom, with an August report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime describing it as potentially more profitable than ever before.

The country has been shaken by at least nine coups and attempted coups between 1974, when it gained independence from Portugal, and 2020, when Embalo took office.

Dias had campaigned partly on the promise of getting the military to stop intervening in politics.

Embalo has said he has survived three coup attempts during his time in office. His critics have accused him of manufacturing crises as an excuse for crackdowns.

Election observers unaccounted for

Election observers from the African Union and West African regional bloc ECOWAS, in a joint statement on Wednesday night expressing “deep concern” over the coup announcement, said officials in charge of the electoral process had been arrested and called for their immediate release.

Nigerian former President Goodluck Jonathan, who had been observing the vote as part of the West African Elders Forum, was not reachable on Thursday, Joel Ahofodji, an ECOWAS spokesperson, told Reuters.

“I wouldn’t say that he (Goodluck Jonathan) and others are trapped in Guinea-Bissau, but we don’t know his whereabouts,” Ahofodji said.

Edwin Snowe, a senator from Liberia who had been among a group of parliamentary observers, told Reuters he left the country on Tuesday and had been unable since Wednesday to reach fellow observers who were still there.

“We don’t intend for the military team of ECOWAS to intervene,” he told Reuters. “What we are doing now is to encourage dialogue and return to democracy.”