Military officers in Guinea-Bissau announced on Wednesday they are taking “total control” of the country while suspending its electoral process and closing its borders, three days after the poverty-stricken west African nation’s legislative and presidential elections.The officers made the announcement by reading a statement at the army headquarters in the capital, Bissau, news agency AFP reported.Earlier in the day, gunfire was heard near the presidential palace as men in military uniform took over the main road leading to the building. Since declaring independence from Portugal in 1973, Guinea-Bissau has endured four cops, along with several failed attempts.Initial results of the presidential and legislative elections had been due on Thursday.Incumbent President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, who has reportedly been arrested by soldiers, had been widely expected to win, and the process had unfolded peacefully until Wednesday.Both Embalo and opposition contender Fernando Dias have already claimed victory.The vote, however, notably excluded the main opposition party PAIGC and its leader Domingos Simões Pereira. In October, the Supreme Court struck both from the final list of candidates and parties, ruling that their applications had been submitted past the deadline.Pereira and Embalo are long-standing rivals. Their previous electoral contest, in 2019, triggered a four-month standoff as each asserted he had won.On Tuesday, the head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) observation mission, Issifu Baba Braimah Kamara, had praised the “peaceful conduct of the vote,” highlighting the calm before the latest bout of unrest.Guinea-Bissau, one of the world’s poorest nations, also serves as a key transit point for Latin American drug traffickers moving cocaine to Europe—a trade enabled by its chronic political instability.
