{"id":3755,"date":"2025-12-12T11:06:31","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jubaglobal.com\/?p=3755"},"modified":"2025-12-12T11:06:32","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T11:06:32","slug":"guinea-bissau-approves-transitional-charter-as-military-consolidates-power-after-coup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/directtopic.com\/jubaglobal.com\/guinea-bissau-approves-transitional-charter-as-military-consolidates-power-after-coup\/","title":{"rendered":"Guinea-Bissau Approves Transitional Charter as Military Consolidates Power After Coup"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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By Juba Global News Network Staff<\/strong>
Juba, South Sudan \u2013 12 December 2025<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BISSAU \u2013 On Wednesday, Guinea-Bissau\u2019s military-dominated National People\u2019s Assembly voted unanimously in favor of a 12-month Transitional Charter, cementing the junta\u2019s hold over the small West African country exactly two weeks after troops toppled President Umaro Sissoco Embal\u00f3 and Prime Minister Rui Duarte de Barros in a dawn coup that didn\u2019t spill a drop of blood. The new 35-article charter, which Colonel Baciro Dja\u2014spokesman for the self-proclaimed “Committee for the Restoration of Constitutional Order and Democracy”\u2014read out in the assembly chamber, suspends the 1996 Constitution, dissolves the parliament, and makes it plain that neither the interim president nor prime minister can run in future elections. The document also stretches the transitional period through December 2026, kicking presidential and legislative elections\u2014originally slated for late 2025\u2014down the road by at least a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a nation that\u2019s seen eleven coups or failed coups since it gained independence from Portugal in 1974, adopting this charter feels like a turning point, especially after the junta started out promising a speedy return to civilian government. Privately, diplomats in Bissau are now describing the transition as \u201cmanaged democracy with military characteristics\u201d\u2014a neat phrase that says a lot, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Barracks to the Presidential Palace<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The coup on 27 November 2025 got underway at 04:30 GMT, when crack troops from the Presidential Guard Battalion, backed up by regular army units, blocked off key roads in the capital and put President Embal\u00f3 under house arrest. Within a matter of hours, state TV announced that the armed forces had \u201ctaken responsibility for the destiny of the nation,\u201d blaming \u201cgrave threats to institutional stability and the systematic looting of public funds.\u201d The junta accused the ousted government of plotting to rig the next elections, siphoning off millions from cashew export revenue\u2014the backbone of the country\u2019s economy\u2014and letting cocaine traffickers run wild in the Bijag\u00f3s Archipelago. There\u2019s never been any proof shown, but in a country weary from years of corruption, those claims struck a nerve with many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By lunchtime, General Tom\u00e1s Djassi, Chief of General Staff, had already been sworn in as Interim President in a small ceremony attended by top brass and some traditional chiefs. In his first speech, Djassi vowed to hold \u201cfree, fair and transparent elections within the shortest possible time compatible with national reconciliation.\u201d But, looking at the new charter, that promise seems, well, a lot less definite than it sounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Key Details in the Transitional Charter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  • Duration<\/strong>: 12 months, renewable once (so, until 31 December 2026, tops).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Interim Leadership<\/strong>: Both president and prime minister\u2014who\u2019ll be picked by the junta\u2014can\u2019t stand in the next elections.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Legislative Authority<\/strong>: Lies with a 102-member National People\u2019s Assembly made up of military figures, civil society, political parties, and traditional leaders.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Judiciary<\/strong>: The Supreme Court and Constitutional Court are frozen \u201cuntil new organic laws are adopted.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Political Parties<\/strong>: They can keep going but can\u2019t hold congresses or primaries until six months ahead of elections.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Media<\/strong>: Private media can operate but will answer to a new \u201cNational Communication Council\u201d led by a junta appointee.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    One article, number 34, is already drawing fire: it gives the armed forces \u201cguarantor\u201d status over the transition, with the stated right to \u201cintervene to safeguard constitutional order\u201d\u2014which, as analysts see it, is basically a green light for more military meddling down the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Regional and International Responses<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) slammed the coup on 28 November, slapping travel bans and asset freezes on 14 top officers. Still, they stopped short of suspending Guinea-Bissau from the group, maybe just tired after so many recent coups in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. At an emergency summit in Abuja on 8 December, ECOWAS gave the junta six months to hand over an \u201cacceptable roadmap,\u201d yet hinted that a two-year transition could slide by, so long as elections take place by the end of 2026. Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who currently chairs ECOWAS, told journalists, \u201cWe have learned that blanket suspensions often punish the population more than the coup leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The African Union Peace and Security Council echoed ECOWAS but hasn\u2019t pulled the trigger on its full anti-coup protocol yet. Meanwhile, Portugal\u2014the old colonial ruler\u2014demanded \u201can immediate and unconditional return to constitutional order,\u201d while China, who bankrolls much of Bissau\u2019s infrastructure, stuck to blandly calling for all parties to \u201cresolve differences through dialogue.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    A Deeply Divided Political Scene<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Inside the country, people are sharply split. The African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), which long dominated and placed second in the contested 2019 elections, has cautiously welcomed the charter\u2014as long as the military actually sticks to its timeline. Domingos Sim\u00f5es Pereira, the PAIGC\u2019s leader and a longtime adversary of Embal\u00f3, put it this way: \u201cThe people want stability, not perpetual military tutelage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    By contrast, smaller opposition parties grouped under the Platform of Democratic Forces accused the junta of \u201cinstitutionalising a soft dictatorship,\u201d and tried to organize street protests\u2014protests that fizzled out quickly after police banned all public gatherings \u201cfor security reasons.\u201d Civil society is just as divided. The National Human Rights League gave the charter a nod for including gender quotas in the transitional assembly, but the prominent Guinean Human Rights League slammed the suspension of constitutional courts, calling it \u201ca dangerous precedent.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Cashew, Cocaine, and That Same Old Question of Stability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    Guinea-Bissau\u2019s curse, some say, is its geography: eighty islands, tangled mangroves, and two million of the poorest people in the world make for a perfect staging ground for Latin American cocaine headed to Europe. The UNODC figures up to thirty tonnes a year pass through, fuelling bribes that are way larger than the country\u2019s entire budget. On top of that, 80% of rural families survive off cashew nuts. Past governments, again and again, have just treated export taxes like their own private stash, so farmers are left at the mercy of middlemen and big Indian buyers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    No surprise, then, that a lot of ordinary people simply met the coup with weary shrugs, not outrage. \u201cWe just want to sell our cashews and feed our children,\u201d Fatumata Djalo, a market vendor in Bafat\u00e1, told reporters. \u201cWhoever is in power, the suffering is the same.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    What\u2019s Next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    General Djassi says an electoral calendar will be published by February 2026, and he\u2019s promised talks with political parties starting in January. But if you look closely at the transitional charter\u2019s language, there\u2019s little doubt: the military is planning to keep its hand firmly on the country\u2019s future for at least another two years. For a country ranked 177th out of 191 on the UN Human Development Index\u2014where most folks live on less than $2 a day\u2014the question now isn\u2019t so much whether elections will be free or fair, but whether they\u2019ll actually happen at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One Bissau-based diplomat summed it up privately: \u201cWest Africa is running out of red lines. After enough coups, suspension is just a symbol and sanctions are pure theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    So, for the moment, it\u2019s the soldiers who call the shots, the constitution stays on ice, and the people of Guinea-Bissau are left waiting\u2014again\u2014to see if this time will be any different, or if it\u2019s just the same story repeating itself, one more time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Juba Global News Network \u2013 Independent African journalism without borders.<\/em>
    www.JubaGlobal.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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