November 26, 2025
Armed soldiers stormed the presidential palace in Bissau on Wednesday afternoon, detaining President Umaro Sissoco Embaló in what is now confirmed as the latest coup d’état in the troubled West African nation.
The takeover unfolded just three days after fiercely contested presidential and legislative elections in which both Embaló and his main challenger, Fernando Dias da Costa, had prematurely declared victory.Heavy gunfire rang out across the capital around 1 p.m. local time. Military vehicles quickly sealed off roads around the palace and the headquarters of the National Electoral Commission. Residents fled the area as the situation escalated.
A government official living near the palace told reporters she heard sustained bursts of gunfire.In a broadcast on state television, uniformed officers announced that the armed forces had taken “total control” of the country.
They declared the creation of a “High Military Command for the Restoration of Order” that will govern indefinitely. Borders and airspace have been closed, a nationwide curfew imposed, and the entire electoral process suspended.Among those detained with President Embaló are the chief of staff of the armed forces, General Biaguê Na Ntan; his deputy, General Mamadou Touré; and Interior Minister Botché Candé.
The upheaval follows elections held on November 23, in which more than 65 percent of eligible voters reportedly turned out. Embaló, running for re-election under the banner of MADEM-G15, claimed a first-round landslide. Dias, an independent backed by a broad coalition, rejected the claims and insisted the people had voted for change.
The historic PAIGC party and its leader, former Prime Minister Domingos Simões Pereira, had been disqualified from the race by the Supreme Court for procedural reasons, marking the first election without PAIGC participation since independence.Embaló himself came to power in a disputed 2019 runoff and became the first president elected without PAIGC support.
His tenure was marked by repeated dissolutions of opposition-controlled parliaments, rule by decree, and accusations of authoritarianism. In 2022 he survived a five-hour attack on the palace that he described as a failed coup.Since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974, Guinea-Bissau has suffered at least ten coup attempts and four successful military takeovers.
No democratically elected president has ever completed two consecutive terms. The country remains one of the world’s poorest, heavily dependent on foreign aid and long notorious as a transit hub for the trans-Atlantic cocaine trade.With this latest intervention, Guinea-Bissau joins Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali under military rule, further deepening concerns about democratic backsliding across the Sahel and West Africa.
Regional bodies and international partners have condemned the coup and called for an immediate return to constitutional order.As night fell in Bissau, the future of the suspended elections—and of civilian rule itself—remained uncertain.
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