Guinea-Bissau must restore critical institutional legitimacy for credible elections

New members of the National People’s Assembly of Guinea-Bissau (Assembleia Nacional Popular da Guiné-Bissau, or ANP) will be elected on 24 November 2024. While these elections would ordinarily contribute to the country’s democratisation and political stability, they are being organised by institutions deemed to have lost their legitimacy. 

Coupled with heightened political tensions in recent years, such elections risk entrenching Guinea-Bissau’s institutional fragility.

The elections are needed though, following President Umaro Sissoco Embaló’s controversial dissolution of the ANP last December. The ANP had been dominated by the Inclusive Alliance Platform (PAI)-Terra Ranka coalition led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC). The party won an absolute majority of 54 of the 102 seats in the ANP in the June 2023 legislative elections.

This was the second time Embaló had dissolved the ANP – the first being in May 2022. Like the initial dissolution, the latest was apparently similarly motivated by the desire to change institutional power dynamics that constrained Embaló and left little room to manoeuvre. 

Officially, clashes between some of the National Guard and special forces of the Presidential Guard (which Embaló described as an attempted coup) served as a pretext for the dissolution. The 2022 dissolution was triggered when Parliament refused to lift the immunity of certain deputies – including PAIGC President Domingos Simões Pereira. 

As Guinea-Bissau gets closer to the elections, it remains afflicted by serious institutional shortcomings and political tensions that threaten the whole electoral process. 

A key shortcoming relates to the illegitimacy of the Comissão Nacional de Eleições (National Elections Commission, or CNE) – the mandate of its president and executive secretariat members expired in April 2022 and has not yet been renewed.

The situation has seemingly persisted for two main reasons. First is the government’s desire to exercise some control over the CNE. Second, the ANP has been unable to elect the new president and the new members of the executive secretariat of the CNE because of the dissolutions.

The ANP’s standing committee, currently the only functioning arm of parliament, could elect members of the CNE. However, it cannot meet as the government controls the leadership of the ANP and has replaced Pereira with Adja Satú Camará Pinto – the country’s current vice-president and an ally of Embaló – as president.

Compounding the situation is the supreme court’s paralysis – also resulting from a struggle for its control by political players, particularly in the run-up to elections. In Guinea-Bissau, the supreme court is mandated to review and validate the eligibility of political candidates and verify and declare the final results of elections. It is also responsible for settling electoral disputes. 

However, since the forced resignation of the supreme court’s president, José Pedro Sambu, last November, it has been dysfunctional and unable to discharge its electoral mandate.

Significantly, six out of the court’s 12 judges who could adjudicate electoral disputes are subject to disciplinary proceedings initiated by former vice-president Judge Lima André – who currently serves as interim president. These judges are currently suspended and therefore cannot sit in session. This means the court does not have the quorum of seven judges required to sit and deliberate on matters before it, including reviewing and determining the validity or otherwise of candidacies. Neither would it be able to declare election results.

To address this dysfunctionality, the court’s interim president set up an ad hoc technical committee responsible for the candidacy verification process. The committee’s success, however, depends on the support of the political players involved. 

Already there are suspicions around personal relations between Embaló and the court’s interim president and the impact this could have on the electoral process. This was made clear during Institute for Security Studies interviews conducted in Bissau. The committee’s establishment also contravenes laws governing the organisation and operation of the court, including its electoral mandate. 

Any rejection by the court of the candidacy of opposition leaders could be interpreted as an attempt to eliminate the president’s opponents in the presidential elections due to be held this year and in the November legislative elections. Especially in a context where Embaló declared that his successor would not be Pereira nor two other opposition politicians, Braima Camará and Nuno Gomes Nabiam. 

Accordingly, neither the CNE nor the supreme court can organise or oversee the legislative elections. To ensure the situation does not degenerate and exacerbate the political crisis, Embaló should talk with political and institutional players to reach a broad consensus to restore institutional normalcy. This is all the more important given the ongoing tensions around the end of his tenure and the date of the next presidential election. 

Some opposition political parties have already said the current president will no longer be considered as such after 27 February 2025 – the date ending his constitutional term.

As Guinea-Bissau’s elections draw near, the Economic Community of West African States – in its capacity as the guarantor of the country’s stabilisation process – should intervene to help create the conditions for a peaceful and credible election. For this, political actors could consider combining the legislative and presidential elections and shifting them to a later date agreed by all stakeholders.

Postponing the legislative elections would allow for time to address the current institutional dysfunctions and problems of legitimacy, with the election of CNE and supreme court personnel as a key prerequisite. This would be key to building trust and confidence in these institutions among political players. It would provide an opportunity for those involved to reach a consensus on the date of the next presidential election. 

Above all, it would prevent the president’s legitimacy from being questioned after his term ends in February – a situation that could further undermine the fragility of the country’s institutions. DM

Paulin Maurice Toupane, Senior Researcher, ISS, Regional Office for West Africa and the Sahel.

First published by ISS Today.