Guinea-Bissau: president dissolves parliament after ‘coup attempt’, fresh elections planned

Guinea-Bissau’s President Umaro Sissoco Embalo has dissolved the nation’s opposition-dominated parliament ahead of fresh elections and shortly after armed clashes in the capital Bissau that he describes as an “attempted coup d’état” and which plunged the small West African nation into yet another crisis.
“The date of the next legislative elections will be set at the appropriate time, in accordance with the provisions (…) of the Constitution,” says a presidential decree communicated to the press on Monday (3 December). President Embalo invokes the “complicity” between the National Guard, the body involved in the clashes with the Presidential Guard last Thursday and Friday (29-30 November), and “certain political interests within the state apparatus itself,” a government spokesperson told reporters. “After this attempted coup d’état … the normal functioning of the institutions of the Republic has become impossible. These facts confirm the existence of a serious crisis in politics,” he added.
While Embalo was attending the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, violence had erupted between members of the national guard and special forces of the presidential guard on Thursday night in the capital Bissau, leaving two people dead. This happened against the backdrop of what observers describe as deep political fractures at the heart of the state between the presidency and the government, which also run through the security forces. The West African nation is experiencing chronic political instability and has experienced a string of coups since its independence from Portugal in 1974, the last in February 2022 when Embalo survived a bid to overthrow him.