Guinea-Bissau’s presidential election process has been plunged into uncertainty after the country’s electoral commission announced that it is no longer able to complete the November 23 vote. According to election officials, armed individuals stormed the commission’s offices, seized ballots and voting records, and destroyed the servers where the results had been stored, making it impossible to verify or announce final outcomes.
The announcement came one day after a group of army officers seized power in the West African nation on November 26, just before the electoral commission was expected to declare the results of a closely watched and contested election. During the takeover, several government buildings, including the headquarters of the electoral commission, came under attack. Major-General Horta Inta-a was sworn in as Guinea-Bissau’s new transitional president on November 27, effectively halting the electoral process.
“We do not have the material and logistic conditions to follow through with the electoral process,” said Idrissa Djalo, a senior official of the electoral commission, in a formal statement. He explained that a group of unidentified, armed, and hooded men had entered the commission’s premises on the day of the coup and ransacked the building. During the raid, they confiscated computers belonging to all 45 staff members present and seized tally sheets that had been sent in from different regions of the country. The main server containing digital election data was also destroyed.
“It is impossible to complete the electoral process without the tally sheets from the regions,” Djalo said, emphasizing that both the physical and digital evidence required to confirm the results no longer exist.
The military leadership has promised that the country will be governed by a transitional administration for a period of one year. However, regional and international organizations have expressed serious concern about the return to military rule. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has strongly condemned the disruption of constitutional order and has called for the restoration of civilian government as soon as possible. A high-level ECOWAS delegation, led by Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, visited the capital, Bissau, and held meetings with military leaders and electoral officials to assess the situation.
ECOWAS leaders have warned that sanctions could be imposed if steps are not taken toward restoring democracy. The bloc is scheduled to meet on December 14 to further discuss the crisis and determine appropriate action.
Guinea-Bissau has experienced repeated cycles of political instability since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974, with only one elected president successfully completing a full term in office. The ongoing turmoil has also made the country an attractive transit point for illegal drug trafficking operations between Latin America and Europe. During his swearing-in, Inta-a claimed that the coup was aimed at preventing so-called “narco-traffickers” from infiltrating and controlling the nation’s democratic institutions.
Source:Africa Publicity
