Major-General Horta Inta-A was sworn in as the new interim president on November 27.
Published on December 2, 2025
of Guinea-Bissau The Election Commission has said it can no longer hold the presidential election scheduled for November 23.
Army officers seized power 26 NovemberA day earlier, the commission was supposed to announce the provisional results from the tight polls. During the seizure, several buildings including the headquarters of the Election Commission were attacked.
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“We do not have the material and logistical conditions to carry out the election process,” a senior Election Commission official, Idrissa Jalo, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“They confiscated the computers of all the 45 employees who were in the commission that day,” he said, adding that the tally sheets of all the regions were confiscated and the server where the results were stored destroyed.
“It is impossible to complete the electoral process without the tally sheet in the region,” Jalo said.
Major-General Horta Inta-A was sworn in as the new interim president on November 27, halting the electoral process. The military has since tightened restrictions, banning demonstrations and strikes.
Inta-A has promised a one-year transitional period and on Saturday appointed a 28-member cabinet made up of a majority aligned with the ousted president.
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The coup came three days after presidential elections, with both main contenders – incumbent President Umero Sissoko Mbalo and opposition candidate Fernando Dias da Costa – claiming victory ahead of provisional results. No results have been declared since then.
During the takeover, Embalo told French media by phone that he had been deposed and arrested. He has since fled to Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo.
Nigeria said President Bola Tinubu had authorized the protection of Dias da Costa due to “threat to his life”.
The PAIGC, one of the country’s dominant political parties, was barred from fielding candidates in the election – a decision condemned by civil rights groups who described it as part of a broader crackdown on opposition parties.
Guinea-Bissau’s new military authorities are facing increasing pressure from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore constitutional order and allow the electoral process to resume.
A high-level delegation of the bloc, led by current president and Sierra Leone president Julius Mada Bayo, met military leaders and electoral commission officials in Bissau on Monday and called for the “full restoration of constitutional order”.
ECOWAS leaders, who have threatened sanctions against those who flout the democratic process, are due to meet on December 14 to discuss the crisis.