Bissau – Security forces prevented Guinea-Bissau’s former ruling party from meeting in the capital on Saturday, the party said, just days after an attempted coup in the small West African country.
The once dominant African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which led Guinea-Bissau to independence from Portugal in 1974, still contests the 2020 election of President Umaro Sissoco Embalo.
PAIGC had planned to meet at its headquarters in the centre of capital Bissau on Saturday.
“Security forces barred access to the PAIGC headquarters to 100 delegates from all over the country,” PAIGC vice-president Manecas dos Santos told AFP.
The meeting had been scheduled to prepare for a party congress from February 17-20, he said, questioning the reason for the ban.
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The government could not be immediately reached for comment.
On Tuesday heavily armed men attacked government buildings in Bissau where President Embalo was believed to be attending a cabinet meeting.
Eleven people were killed in a five-hour gun battle but the 49-year-old president emerged unscathed, later describing the attack as a plot to wipe out the government.
The identity and motives of the assailants remain unclear.
Embalo, a reserve brigadier general, took office in February 2020 after winning an election that followed four years of political in-fighting under the country’s semi-presidential system.
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His chief opponent, PAIGC candidate Domingos Simoes Pereira, bitterly contested the result but Embalo declared himself president without waiting for the outcome of his petition to the Supreme Court.
Guinea-Bissau, a coastal state of around two million people south of Senegal, has suffered four military coups since 1974, its most recent in 2012.
Tuesday’s violence sparked fears of another military takeover in West Africa, after coups in Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso in less than 18 months.
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Source: AFP
Picture: Pexels
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