President Umaro Sissoco Embalo is back in control of Bissau, three days after clashes that caused panic in the capital on Thursday night, December 1. On Monday December 4 morning, the Bissau-Guinean president decided to dissolve the opposition-dominated Parliament.
A meeting of the Council of State was convened at the Presidential palace on Monday morning, on the initiative of President Umaro Sissoco Embalo. Among the members of the Council are all the representatives of the major State bodies, the President of the Supreme Court, the President of the National Assembly, Domingos Simoes Pereira, and Prime Minister Geraldo Martins, as well as the leaders of the political parties.
On the agenda: the dissolution of the National Assembly, announced on Monday by President Embalo, three days after the events he described as an “attempted coup d’Etat”, which automatically entails the dissolution of the cohabitation government.
This option was more than envisaged, given that, since last summer’s parliamentary elections, the cohabitation between the Head of State and the victorious opposition parliament of the Inclusive Alliance-Terra Ranka platform has been extremely difficult and complex. Last week’s coup attempt, provoked by the police interrogation of two opposition ministers, is a case in point.
In what is currently a political cohabitation between Guinea-Bissau’s president and the National Assembly, which is largely made up of political opponents, a constitutional showdown is in the offing.
Indeed, shortly after the announcement of the dissolution, the President of the National Assembly, Domingos Simoes Pereira (Embalo’s best political enemy) declared that the dissolution had no legitimacy. The Constitution, he explained, forbids the dissolution of Parliament before it has been in office for six months. However, the current Assembly has only been in existence for three months.
As soon as the announcement was made, President Embalo redistributed the posts within his cohabitation government, with Umaro Sissoco Embalo taking the Defense and Interior portfolios, while his Prime Minister, Geraldo Martins, was given the Finance portfolio, renewing “his confidence in him”.