Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the newly elected president of Guinea-Bissau will take charge of a country with
political institutions deeply riddled with crises.
Is the newly elected president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, the man who will finally succeed
in putting an end to the endless series of political crises that have plagued the former Portuguese colony
since its independence in 1974?
“This election is a historic opportunity to start a national dialogue to dispel the deep antagonism at the top
of the state, particularly between the president and the Parliament,” said Paulin Maurice Toupane, a
researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
“It will not be enough on its own to install Guinea Bissau in a dynamic of stability if the political actors
are not aware of the seriousness in which the country was in 2019,” he warned.
To break the country’s endless cycles of turbulence, the researcher believes that the new president, whose
party, the Madem G-15, a splinter of the traditional African Party for the Independence of Guinea and
Cape Verde (PAIGC), must implement institutional and structural reforms.
But are the democratic transfer of power and the “satisfactory conduct” of the electoral process, the signs that
the country has probably entered into a good momentum to end decades of political warfare?
“These are signs that things are starting to move and it is hoped that the new president will only consolidate
institutions and strengthen the rules of democracy,” the Director of the Open Society Foundations’ advocacy
office at the African Union, Pope Ibrahima Kane, said.
The institutional stalemate noted in recent years in Guinea Bissau is the result of the “climate of mistrust”
at the top of the state linked to the appointment of the Prime Minister.
According to the Constitution, the head of government must come from the majority party in the National
Assembly. However, the PAIGC remains the leading force in the hemicycle with its 47 seats out of 102
and the Madem G-15 of the new president sits in the opposition with its 27 seats.
“The PAIGC defeat in the presidential elections may lead the leaders of this party to a more reasonable
attitude by putting forward the best interests of the country,” Kane said.
According to him, even if it is premature at the moment to speak of a crisis, the Bissau-Guinean system is
tending towards a presidential system and the head of state may man oeuvre to destabilise the majority party
in the National Assembly.
A situation Toupane fears. He believes that Embalo will be part of a process of consensus and agree to appoint
a Prime Minister in accordance with the fundamental law. Otherwise, Guinea Bissau risks plunging back into
a “new cycle of instability with a major risk of institutional deadlock as in 2018 and 2019.”
As for the interference of the army in political affairs, the advocacy director reassured that the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) continues to play “the role of referee” and deterrence
through its military force ECOMOG deployed in the country.
“Guinea Bissau has accepted many of the ECOWAS rules contained in the protocol on good governance
where the army must be republican, i.e. subject to the political authorities,” Kane noted.
Embalo’s other challenge is therefore to implement the “the security system reform,” which since 2008 had
stumbled on differences between the army and political actors, Toupane advised.
The revival of the economy and the fight against drug trafficking will necessarily require a “stable and
sustainable government” and the establishment of a “republican army” that will be outside the political
game, the ISS expert stressed.
Dng/lb/GIK/APA