Guinea’s ruling junta, which seized power more than two years ago, on Monday (19 February) decreed the dissolution of the government in the West African nation and said it will appoint a new one, but has not indicated when that would be.
“The government is dissolved,” General Amara Camara, a junta spokesman, said, without giving no reason for the dissolution, nor a date for announcing a new government. Camara, flanked by around about two dozen uniformed, some armed and masked, soldiers in the pre-recorded video, also added that “current affairs will be managed by the cabinet directors, secretary generals and deputy secretary generals until a new government is put in place.” It is still unclear how the dissolution would immediately affect the country or who the senior members of a new government would be. Ministers in the dissolved government were ordered to surrender their passports and official vehicles and their bank accounts have been frozen. All the country’s borders have also been “sealed” until government ministries have been fully handed over to the junta.
The military junta took power in a coup in September 2021 after the country’s first democratically-elected president, Alpha Conde, was deposed by special forces. Under international pressure, military leader Colonel Mamady Doumbouya in October 2022 promised to use the so-called transitional period to carry out far-reaching reforms in Guinea and hand the reins of government back to elected civilians by the end of 2024. But the opposition has accused the junta of authoritarian drift after it banned all demonstrations in 2022, has arrested several prominent opposition leaders, civil society members and the press and restricted internet access.