Guinea-Bissau in institutional crisis as president stays

Guinea Bissau: Umaro Sissoco Embaló’s five-year term as president officially expired on February 28, 2025. Technically, he is no longer Guinea Bisssau’s leader, but he has not stepped down. Domingos Simões Pereira, leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), insists Embaló must step down immediately.

Pereira leads a coalition that actually won the last parliamentary elections in 2023 with an absolute majority. But since then, Embaló has systematically prevented Pereira from forming a government.

The four-year term of the parliament has also expired, so Pereira wants new presidential and parliamentary elections “within 90 days and not only on November 30, as the president has suggested.”

Pereira adds: “The constitution requires this. Before that, the parliament, which the president dissolved in December 2023, must be urgently reconvened.”

According to Pereira, this parliament must appoint the members of the National Election Commission and elect the president of the Constitutional Court, whose mandates have also expired. Most other political parties in the country, legal experts, and civil society representatives in Guinea-Bissau share this view.