Soldiers in Guinea-Bissau say they have seized power

Sol­diers in Guinea-Bis­sau ap­peared on state tele­vi­sion Wednes­day say­ing they have seized pow­er in the coun­try, fol­low­ing re­ports of gun­shots near the pres­i­den­tial palace, three days af­ter na­tion­al elec­tions. The pres­i­dent told French me­dia he had been de­posed and ar­rest­ed.

It was the lat­est of sev­er­al coups in re­cent years in West Africa.

“The High Mil­i­tary Com­mand for the reestab­lish­ment of na­tion­al and pub­lic or­der de­cides to im­me­di­ate­ly de­pose the pres­i­dent of the re­pub­lic, to sus­pend, un­til new or­ders, all of the in­sti­tu­tions of the re­pub­lic of Guinea-Bis­sau,” spokesper­son Di­nis N’Tchama said in a state­ment.

He said they act­ed in re­sponse to the “dis­cov­ery of an on­go­ing plan” that he said aimed to desta­bilise the coun­try by at­tempt­ing to “ma­nip­u­late elec­toral re­sults.”

The “scheme was set up by some na­tion­al politi­cians with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of a well-known drug lord, and do­mes­tic and for­eign na­tion­als,” N’Tchama as­sert­ed, and gave no de­tails.

The sol­diers said they were im­me­di­ate­ly sus­pend­ing the elec­toral process and the ac­tiv­i­ties of me­dia out­lets, as well as clos­ing all bor­ders.

Guinea-Bis­sau has seen four coups and nu­mer­ous at­tempt­ed ones since in­de­pen­dence, in­clud­ing one re­port­ed last month. The coun­try al­so has emerged as a hub for drug traf­fick­ing be­tween Latin Amer­i­ca and Eu­rope.

The pres­i­den­tial and leg­isla­tive elec­tions were held Sun­day. In­cum­bent Pres­i­dent Umaro Sis­so­co Em­baló and op­po­si­tion can­di­date Fer­nan­do Dias da Cos­ta each claimed vic­to­ry Tues­day, even though of­fi­cial pro­vi­sion­al re­sults were not ex­pect­ed un­til Thurs­day.

Gun­fire was heard mid­day Wednes­day near the pres­i­den­tial palace. An As­so­ci­at­ed Press jour­nal­ist saw roads lead­ing to the palace closed off, with check­points manned by heav­i­ly armed and masked sol­diers.

An of­fi­cial from the pres­i­den­tial palace said a group of armed men tried to at­tack the build­ing, lead­ing to an ex­change of gun­fire with guards. An­oth­er of­fi­cial from the In­te­ri­or Min­istry said they al­so heard gun­shots near the Na­tion­al Elec­toral Com­mis­sion near­by. The two spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty be­cause they were not al­lowed to speak pub­licly on the mat­ter.

A key mem­ber of an in­ter­na­tion­al elec­tion ob­serv­er group said the elec­tion com­mis­sion chief was ar­rest­ed and the com­mis­sion of­fice was sealed off by the mil­i­tary.

“The pres­i­dent has been speak­ing to peo­ple say­ing he’s be­ing held by the mil­i­tary,” the ob­serv­er group staffer told the AP. They spoke on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty as they were not al­lowed to speak pub­licly on the mat­ter.

French news out­let Je­une Afrique quot­ed Em­baló as say­ing he was ar­rest­ed in what he called a coup led by the army chief of staff. He said he was not sub­ject­ed to vi­o­lence.

“I have been de­posed,” Em­baló told French tele­vi­sion net­work France 24.

Em­baló had faced a le­git­i­ma­cy cri­sis, with the op­po­si­tion say­ing his tenure had long ex­pired and that they did not recog­nise him as pres­i­dent.

Guinea-Bis­sau’s con­sti­tu­tion sets the pres­i­den­tial term at five years. Em­baló first came to pow­er in Feb­ru­ary 2020. The op­po­si­tion says his term should have end­ed on Feb. 27 of this year, but the Supreme Court ruled it should run un­til Sept. 4.

The pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, how­ev­er, was de­layed un­til this month.

BIS­SAU, Guinea-Bis­sau (AP) —