Guinea Bissau’s military installed Major-General General Horta Inta-a as transitional president on Thursday, a day after soldiers toppled the civilian leadership in a swift power grab made before the results of a weekend election could be announced.
It was the ninth coup in West and Central Africa in five years and continued a pattern of instability in Guinea-Bissau, a notorious cocaine transport hub with a long history of military interventions in politics.
The self-styled “High Military Command for the Restoration of Order” announced in a televised statement on Wednesday that they had ousted President Umaro Sissoco Embalo. They said the move came in response to a destabilisation plan involving politicians and drug barons, without going into more detail.
Wearing a military uniform and flanked by other military officials, Inta-a made his first public appearance as leader at a ceremony broadcast Thursday on state television. He said the coup was necessary to stave off a plot by “narcotraffickers” to “capture Guinean democracy” and said the transition would last one year, beginning immediately.
At a swearing-in ceremony later on Thursday, he named Major-General Tomas Djassi as army chief of staff.
The takeover came a day before provisional results were due to be announced in the race between Embalo and Fernando Dias, a 47-year-old political newcomer who had emerged as Embalo’s top challenger in the presidential vote.
Before the coup announcement, gunfire rang out in the capital Bissau for about an hour on Wednesday near the electoral commission headquarters and presidential palace.
Embalo called French media to say he had been deposed.
An army statement dated Thursday said Embalo and other top officials were “under the control of the High Military Command.”
Condemnation OF the Coup
African Union chairperson Mahmoud Ali Youssouf condemned the coup in a statement, and called for the release of Embalo “and all detained officials.”
Heads of state from the West African regional bloc ECOWAS also condemned the coup and later held a virtual meeting to discuss the situation, according to a post on X.
