Officers in the army claim to have taken control of Guinea-Bissau

A day before the results of a fiercely fought presidential election were scheduled to be announced, a group of army soldiers claimed to have taken control of coup-prone Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday.

The army commanders claimed to have overthrown President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, halted the election process, closed borders, and will impose a curfew in a statement that was delivered on state television by spokeswoman Diniz N’Tchama.

Embalo said on France 24 TV shortly after, “I have been deposed.”

In their declaration, the army officers declared that they had established “The High Military Command for the Restoration of Order” and would rule the West African country until further notice.

If the officers had taken Embalo into custody, they did not say so. He was being held at the army chief of staff’s office, according to two security sources who spoke to Reuters.

Embalo’s main opponent in the election, Fernando Dias, claimed in a video statement released by his campaign late Wednesday that he was safe and free after armed men attempted to arrest him.

Domingos Simoes Pereira, the previous prime minister who Embalo defeated in the 2019 election, has been arrested, according to Dias.

“Just because I won the elections, we were the subject of a fake coup attempt. He declared, “This is a simulation.”

In a joint statement on Wednesday night, the African Union and the West African regional group ECOWAS expressed “deep concern” over the declaration of the coup and demanded the immediate release of people in control of the electoral process.

It was the most recent wave of instability in Guinea-Bissau, a little coastal country between Guinea and Senegal that is known for being a major hub for cocaine headed for Europe.

It was unclear at first if the army controlled the entire nation of about 2 million people or if they had the backing of all of Guinea-Bissau’s divided military forces.

An attempt to rig the election results and a destabilization strategy hatched by “certain national politicians” and “well-known national and foreign drug barons” prompted the officers to assume power, according to the army statement.

GUNFIRE PRIOR TO ANNOUNCEMENT IN THE CAPITAL

Witnesses reported hearing gunfire close to the presidential palace, the interior ministry, and the electoral commission headquarters just prior to the officers’ declaration. According to a Reuters correspondent, it seemed to have ended at 1400 GMT after lasting for roughly an hour.

According to a driver in Bissau who wished to remain anonymous, “People are running everywhere,” describing scenes of terror.

No casualties had been reported as of yet.

According to a security advice released by the U.S. mission to Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday, security authorities had used tear gas and there were military checkpoints all across Bissau.

“A continuation of the sporadic gunfire that was reported earlier in the day in Bissau cannot be ruled out,” the warning stated.

The provisional results of the election held on Sunday, in which Embalo and Dias faced off, were supposed to be announced by the electoral commission on Thursday.

In the initial round of voting, both sides had declared themselves winners.

Embalo wanted to win a second term in a row and become Guinea-Bissau’s first president in thirty years.

Antonio Yaya Seidy, an Embalo spokesman, told Reuters that unknown gunmen stormed the election commission to stop the results of the vote from being announced.

He claimed without proof that the men were connected to Dias.

Pereira, who supported Dias in this race but lost to Embalo in a contentious runoff in 2019, told Reuters that Dias was unrelated to the event.

During the same meeting, Dias was meeting with election monitors when “some people erupted in the room to announce that there were gunshots in the centre of the town,” Pereira told Reuters before security sources claimed he had been taken into custody.

A former colonial power Portugal demanded that the counting of votes and the announcement of the results proceed, as well as that government institutions return to their regular functions.

All participants in the disturbances were advised to “refrain from any act of institutional or civic violence.”

COUPS’ LONG HISTORY

Between 1974, when Guinea-Bissau obtained independence from Portugal, and 2020, when Embalo assumed power, the country had experienced at least nine coups and attempted coups.

According to Embalo, he has escaped three coup attempts while in power. He has been accused by his detractors of fabricating crises to justify crackdowns.

In December 2023, the capital was rocked by gunfire for hours, which Embalo’s government said was an attempted putsch. In reaction, Embalo disbanded parliament, and the nation has been without a working legislature ever then.

In late October, officials revealed that a number of senior officers had been arrested on suspicion of attempting to overthrow the government, marking the most recent known coup attempt.

The opposition contended that Embalo had already outlasted his tenure in the tense run-up to Sunday’s vote.

According to a report released in August by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, the cocaine trade seems to be flourishing under Embalo and could be more lucrative than in the past.

The judicial police declared in September of last year that they had taken 2.63 metric tons of cocaine from a Venezuelan jet that had arrived in Bissau.