The army took control of Guinea-Bissau on Wednesday, according to a military spokesman on state television, one day before the small West African nation was scheduled to announce the results of its recent presidential election.
Gunfire rang out near the presidential palace and national electoral commission headquarters on Wednesday afternoon, prompting confusion across Bissau, the capital.
Then, in a scene that has become familiar during the spate of coup d’états across West Africa in recent years, a military spokesman went on state television surrounded by heavily armed, uniformed men. He announced that they had deposed President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, closed the country’s borders and airspace and suspended the electoral process.
The takeover was in response to “an ongoing plan to destabilize our country,” said the spokesman for the military command, Dinis N’Tchama, dressed in a green beret and fatigues and reading from a prepared statement.
“To carry out this plan, an operational scheme had been put in place by certain national politicians with the participation of well-known national and foreign drug barons, as well as an attempt to manipulate electoral results,” he added.
Amid the confusion, speculation flourished around Guinea-Bissau that the coup may have been orchestrated by Mr. Embalo himself to avoid having to leave office in the event of an electoral defeat.
Mr. Embalo on Wednesday told the French television network France 24, “I have been deposed.”
The military statement came shortly after the opposition candidate, Fernando Dias, made an impassioned speech claiming to have won Sunday’s election, and saying that he was only waiting for the final announcement of the national electoral commission on Thursday.
“We will go out into the streets to say thank you to all the people of Guinea-Bissau for all that they have done,” he told a crowd of supporters.
Ruth Maclean is the West Africa bureau chief for The Times, covering 25 countries including Nigeria, Congo, the countries in the Sahel region as well as Central Africa.
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