The president of Guinea-Bissau is reversing his pledge to resign and will run for a second term

Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the president of Guinea-Bissau, announced Monday that he would seek a second term in November, reversing previous promises to resign and perhaps inflaming tensions over the end of his current term and delayed elections.

Embalo spoke to reporters at the airport following a visit to Russia, Azerbaijan, and Hungary: “I will be a candidate in my own succession.”

When his current five-year term, which started in 2020, ends, Embalo and the political opposition in the coup-prone West African country have been at odds. The Supreme Court of Justice has declared that it expires on September 4, but the opposition claims it ended at the end of February.

Embalo’s announcement that the presidential and legislative elections will not take place until November 30 of this year has also caused discontent.

The parliamentary elections, which were initially planned for November 2024, were indefinitely postponed due to budgetary and technical issues, which caused the voting calendar to become jumbled.

“I will talk to the political parties first about the forthcoming elections, and then I will issue a presidential decree,” Embalo told reporters late on Monday.

Embalo, a 52-year-old former army general, took over a protracted political deadlock in a nation that has experienced frequent coups and instability since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974.

According to him, there were two attempts to topple him while he was president, the most recent of which occurred in December 2023.

Last year, the president said that his wife had talked him out of seeking a second term.