Guinea-Bissau military takes ‘total control’ amid election chaos | Guinea-Bissau

Troops in Guinea-Bissau announced they had taken “full control” of the West African country, three days after elections in which both presidential candidates claimed to have won.

In a statement read at army headquarters in the capital Bissau and broadcast on state television, military officials said they had suspended the election process in Guinea-Bissau and closed its borders. They said they had established a “high military command to restore order” that would rule the country until further notice.

Gunshots were heard near the election commission building, the presidential palace and the interior ministry early on Wednesday, but it was not clear who was responsible.

The military coup was the latest in a series of coups and coup attempts since Guinea-Bissau gained independence from Portugal in 1974. The average annual income in the country of 2.2 million was just $963 (£728) in 2024. World Bank.

The UN labeled Guinea-Bissau a “narco-state” in 2008 for its role as a hub for the global cocaine trade. Coastline between Senegal and Guinea features Numerous river deltas and 88 islands in the Bijagós archipelago were what experts say were natural, discrete drop-off points used by Colombian drug cartels.

Incumbent president Umaro Sissoco Embaló was running to become the first president in three decades to win a second term in power. Both he and his chief rival, Fernando Dias, claimed to have won the first round of the election on Sunday.

Earlier Wednesday, a spokesman for Embaló claimed that the shooting was carried out by gunmen affiliated with Dias. But an ally of Dias accused Embaló of trying to simulate a coup attempt so he could declare an emergency and retain power. Neither provided any evidence for their claims.

The election commission was to announce the provisional results of the presidential and parliamentary elections on Thursday.

According to Reuters, there were at least nine coups in Guinea-Bissau between independence and Embaló’s inauguration in 2020. Embaló claimed to have survived three coup attempts during his first term in office, the most recent in October.

However, critics claimed that Embaló fabricated the coup attempts and used them as an excuse to suppress opposition. In December 2023, gunshots were heard for hours in Bissau, which Embaló said was a coup attempt. He dissolved the parliament, and Guinea-Bissau has not had a properly functioning legislature ever since.

Agence France Presse and Reuters contributed to this report