Guinea Bissau’s president on Monday formally postponed legislative elections scheduled for November 24, indefinitely prolonging the small West African nation’s political limbo.
Umaro Sissoco Embalo had beforehand set the November 24 date after dissolving parliament in December 2023 in response to armed clashes three days earlier, which he described as an tried coup.
However expectations had risen since final week that the vote must be postponed, a deferral symptomatic of the instability plaguing the poor Portuguese-speaking nation.
On November 1, the minister for territorial administration, Aristides Ocante da Silva, warned that the vote was unlikely to go forward within the face of logistical difficulties and an absence of cash.
Embalo then mentioned Saturday that he would formalise the elections’ postponement this week.
On Monday, he canceled the decree of July 2024 that set this month’s vote, his political adviser Fernando Delfim da Silva advised journalists on the presidential palace in Bissau.
However Embalo has but to repair a brand new date, and Silva mentioned the timeline could be set in a future decree.
The uncertainty surrounding the legislative elections is compounded by related doubts over the election to switch Embalo as head of state.
A coalition shaped across the African Get together for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), lengthy against the president, had held an absolute majority in parliament since elections in June 2023.
That compelled Embalo right into a tense “cohabitation”, with tensions between the top of state and the PAIGC’s chief complicating the trail to new elections.
As one of many poorest nations on this planet, Guinea Bissau has additionally struggled to search out the cash to fund the vote.
Since its independence from Portugal, the corruption-hit nation has been hit with a collection of coups.
Although Guinea Bissau has paved a path towards a return to constitutional order over the previous decade, it continues to undergo from political turmoil.
That endured after Embalo was elected president in December 2019 for a five-year time period, whereas the phrases of his mandate and the date of the following presidential election stay controversial.
AFP