Bissau – Guinea-Bissau’s legislative elections, scheduled for December 18, have been postponed until June 4, under a presidential decree published on Friday.
President Umaro Sissoco Embalo in May dissolved parliament after falling out with lawmakers, accusing them of having protected MPs implicated in corruption cases and of having refused to be audited.
Embalo called early legislative elections for December.
But in October, a minister warned the vote could be put off because the conditions for credible legislative elections acceptable to all political parties had not been met.
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In November, the West African state’s top court ordered the closure of 28 minor political parties on the grounds that they failed to prove their existence.
The Supreme Court said it sought to weed out tiny parties – estimated to be in the dozens – that had led to splintered and factional politics.
Guinea-Bissau, a former Portuguese colony of around two million people, is notoriously unstable, having suffered four military coups since 1974, most recently in 2012.
Eleven people died in February in violence that was described as an attempted coup.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Twitter/@GovernmentZA
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