THE president of Guinea-Bissau issued a decree today dissolving the parliament after an attempted coup in the West African nation.

Violence had erupted between members of the national guard and special forces of the presidential guard on Thursday night in the capital Bissau, leaving two people dead before the army ordered its forces back to barracks.

President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, who was in Dubai attending the COP28 climate conference, returned to Bissau on Saturday and announced an “attempted coup d’etat” had prevented him from returning earlier.

Today, he said there had been “complicity” between the national guard and “certain political interests within the state apparatus”.

That meant “the normal functioning of the institutions of the republic has become impossible”, he said.

“The date of forthcoming legislative elections will be set at the opportune moment, in line with the constitution,” Embalo said in a communique.

Since gaining independence from Portugal in 1974, the country has seen a series of coups and coup attempts.

Elected to a five-year term in December 2019, Embalo survived a bid to overthrow him in February 2022. – AFP, December 4, 2023.