DakarReuters —
A group of army officers said they had seized power in coup-prone Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday, a day before the planned announcement of results from a hotly contested presidential election.
In a statement read on state television by spokesperson Diniz N’Tchama, the army officers said they had deposed President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, suspended the electoral process, shut borders and would enforce a curfew.
Shortly after, Embalo told France 24 TV: “I have been deposed.”
The army officers said in their statement that they had formed “The High Military Command for the Restoration of Order” and would be in charge of the West African nation until further notice.
The officers did not specify if they had taken Embalo into custody, and his whereabouts was unknown.
It was the latest outbreak of unrest in Guinea-Bissau, a small coastal nation situated between Senegal and Guinea that is a notorious hub for cocaine bound for Europe.
It was not immediately clear whether the army had the support of all of Guinea-Bissau’s fractious armed forces or whether they were in control of all of the country of around two million people.
The army statement said the officers’ decision to take power came in response to a destabilization plan concocted by “certain national politicians” and “well-known national and foreign drug barons,” as well as an attempt to manipulate the election results.
Gunfire heard before announcement
Shortly before the officers’ announcement, gunfire rang out near the electoral commission headquarters, presidential palace and interior ministry, witnesses said. It lasted for about an hour but appeared to have stopped by 2 p.m. GMT (9 a.m. ET), a Reuters journalist said.
“People are running everywhere,” said a driver in Bissau who asked not to be named, describing scenes of panic.
There was no word yet of any casualties.
The electoral commission had been due on Thursday to announce provisional results from Sunday’s election in which Embalo faced off against top challenger Fernando Dias.
Both sides had claimed victory in the first round of voting.
A spokesperson for Embalo, Antonio Yaya Seidy, told Reuters that unidentified gunmen attacked the election commission to prevent an announcement of the vote results.
He said the men were affiliated with Dias, without providing evidence. A spokesperson for Dias did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Former Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, who lost to Embalo in a contested runoff in 2019 and has backed Dias in this election, said Dias had nothing to do with the incident.
Dias was meeting election observers when “some people erupted in the room to announce that there were gunshots in the center of the town,” said Pereira, who said he was in the same meeting.
Embalo was seeking to become the first president in three decades to win a second consecutive term in Guinea-Bissau.
Culled from CNN
