By Paul Ejime
The ECOWAS Observation Mission (EOM) has said that Guinea-Bissau’s 23 November parliamentary and presidential “polls were conducted in a peaceful, orderly and professional manner… despite few initial organisational and set-up deficiencies observed.”
“In the light of the foregoing, the Mission commends the voters, and election officials for their determination, peaceful conduct and professionalism in the exercise of their patriotic duties and obligations,” the Mission said in its Preliminary Declaration released in Bissau on Monday, 25th November.
“The Mission further commends the Government and the …authorities in the country for their efforts in strengthening and consolidating democracy and national ownership by autonomously funding the entire electoral process.”
With the counting of votes and collation of results still ongoing before the announcement of the outcome by the National Electoral Commission, CNE, the campaign offices of the two presidential front-runners, incumbent President Umaro Sissoco Embalo, 53, who is seeking re-election, and 47-year-old opposition candidate Fernando Dias, are both claiming victory.
The ECOWAS 135-strong Mission, headed by Ambassador Baba Kamara, Ghana’s former High Commissioner to Nigeria and ECOWAS, and an ex-National Security Adviser, said that in 902 out of the total 3,728 polling stations covered by the ECOWAS observers across major districts, “the voting exercise was peaceful, orderly and well-organised”.
The Declaration signed by Ambassador Kamara and read on his behalf by Ambassador Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security, noted that “apart from candidate Embalo and his coalition and the independent candidate Dias, most of the parties and other candidates,” had no agents in most of the polling stations observed.
The ECOWAS Mission “notes that the electoral process has entered a very sensitive phase where election results… are being collated, with preliminary and final results to be declared and validated…” It therefore “enjoins all candidates, political parties and coalitions to strictly abide by extant laws and refrain from prematurely circulating or announcing uncertified results.”
The Mission called on all stakeholders to “exercise maximum patience and restraint while awaiting the declaration of the official results,” and “…urges the National electoral Commission to work diligently and expeditiously to ensure the timely release of the results to avoid any tensions.”
The statement noted that the build-up to the November elections was “marked by multiple security, political and institutional issues,” including the tenures of the 102-member parliament being “interrupted twice in less than two years through dissolutions… in May 2022 and December 2023, with the latter dissolution occurring less than six months after the new legislature had been sworn into office.”
The statement also recalled the “dispute over the end date of the incumbent president’s mandate,” with the opposition claiming that the president’s term ended on 27 February 2025, since he took the Oath of office on 27 February 2020 for a five-year mandate.
“The institutional crises were underpinned by three alleged attempts at a coup d’etat… (the first in February 2022, which) …resulted to the deployment of the ECOWAS Stabilization Support Mission in Guinea-Bissau (ESSMGB) in April that year,” the Declaration said, adding that “in the lead-up to the November 2025 poll, the Supreme Court of Justice disqualified the leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde (PAIGC) Domingos Simoes Pereira and his opposition Coalition “PAI-Terra Ranka, from contesting both the presidential and legislative elections…”
The statement said “the Observer Mission will continue to closely monitor the concluding phases of the electoral process, in particular, the collation and transmission of the results as well as the processing and declaration of the provisional results and validation of the same.”
The Mission called on ECOWAS and development partners to “intensify support to Guinea-Bissau in consolidating democracy, peace and social cohesion through continued dialogue among all stakeholders.”
“To this end, all stakeholders…in the polity…,” were urged “to seize the occasion to build national consensus on critical reforms, including the implementation of pertinent elements of the ECOWAS-brokered 2016 Conakry Peace Agreement,” said the Declaration.
In their Preliminary statements, read at the same venue, the Head of the African Union Observation Mission, Mozambique’s former President Filipe Jacinto Nyusi, his counterparts of the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP), Lt.-Gen. Luis Diogo de Carvalho and the g7+ of 20 conflict-affected countries, Christina Mitini, echoed the ECOWAS Mission’s observations and sentiments.
The event was also attended by the West African Elders’ Forum led by its Chair and Convener, former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, accompanied by former ECOWAS Commission President Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, as well as Observers of various Missions.
Guinea-Bissau’s constitution allows the electoral commission between seven and ten days to announce the final results of elections.
Parliamentary seats are decided by the proportional representation of candidates or coalitions, while a presidential candidate requires a 50%+1 vote to win; otherwise, the two front-runners go into a run-off vote after three weeks of the first balloting to determine the winner, under the country’s semi-presidential system, where the President shares political power with the Prime Minister.
