Military officers in Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday announced that they had taken “total control” of the country, suspending the electoral process and shutting all borders—three days after the troubled West African nation held legislative and presidential elections.
Gunfire erupted earlier near the presidential palace as soldiers in uniform seized the main access road to the building, heightening tensions in the coup-prone state.
By early afternoon, General Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, told journalists that a command structure “comprising all branches of the armed forces” had assumed leadership of the country “until further notice.”
He delivered the statement seated at a table, flanked by heavily armed soldiers.
Incumbent President Umaro Sissoco Embalo—considered the frontrunner in Sunday’s vote—was inside a building behind military headquarters alongside the chief of staff and the interior minister, a senior military source told AFP anonymously. It remained unclear whether the president had been detained.
Both Embalo and opposition candidate Fernando Dias had already declared victory in the presidential poll, with provisional results expected Thursday.
Guinea-Bissau, long plagued by instability, has endured four successful coups and several failed attempts since independence.
In his announcement, N’Canha claimed the military had uncovered a plot “involving national drug lords” aimed at destabilising the country through the smuggling of weapons to subvert the constitutional order.
Alongside halting the ongoing electoral process, the military also suspended all media programming and imposed a nationwide curfew.
The country—one of the poorest in the world—has become a transit hub for cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Europe, a problem exacerbated by chronic political turmoil.
Meanwhile, the National Electoral Commission (CNE) came under attack on Wednesday by unidentified armed men, according to Abdourahmane Djalo, the commission’s communications official.
Source: Channels TV
