Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo on Wednesday December 20 dismissed the Prime Minister he had reappointed eight days ago, following the dissolution of the National Assembly and clashes he had described as an “attempted coup d’état”, according to a presidential decree.
“Mr. Geraldo João Martins is dismissed as Prime Minister. This decree comes into force immediately”, says the text, without giving further details.
Mr. Martins is a leader of the opposition coalition that won the June legislative elections around the historic PAIGC party, which led Guinea-Bissau’s liberation struggle and has long dominated the political life of this country plagued by chronic instability.
He was reappointed head of government on December 12, despite the dissolution of the National Assembly by President Embalo following clashes between the National Guard and the army on December 1, which left at least two people dead in the capital Bissau.
Guinea-Bissau’s head of state described the clashes as an “attempted coup d’état”, while the president of parliament, a long-time adversary of Mr. Embalo, denounced a “constitutional coup d’état” by the latter.
President Embalo appointed former prime minister Rui Duarte de Barros in his place. De Barros previously worked as the West African country’s minister of economy and finance and as a commissioner at the West African Economic and Monetary Union, before serving as prime minister in a transitional government between 2012 and 2014.