Afrigather Guinea Bissau’s President Umaro Cissoko Embalo mentioned on Thursday he wouldn’t run for a second time period in elections in November.
Embalo, 51, was elected in January 2020 to succeed outgoing president Jose Mario Vaz.
He defeated runner-up Domingos Simoes Pereira with 54% of the vote and would have been eligible for one more time period in workplace.
The surprising announcement may set off an influence vacuum and heighten political instability within the coup-prone nation of round two million individuals.
On the finish of a council of ministers on Thursday night time, Embalo mentioned his spouse had dissuaded him from working once more.
He mentioned his successor wouldn’t be Pereira nor two different opposition politicians, Braima Camara and Nuno Gomes Na Bian, with out elaborating additional or naming a successor.
Embalo, an ex-army basic who served as prime minister below Vaz, inherited a long-running political deadlock in a rustic the place coups and unrest have been widespread since independence from Portugal in 1974.
There have been two makes an attempt to overthrow him throughout his presidency, based on Embalo, the newest in December 2023.
He dissolved parliament days later for the second time since he got here to energy.
Legislative elections that adopted after the primary time Embalo dissolved parliament, in Could 2022, quashed his plans to push by means of a constitutional change that might have allowed him to consolidate energy by ridding the nation of its semi-presidential system.
Below the present political system, the bulk occasion or coalition appoints the federal government. However the president has the facility to dismiss it in sure circumstances, typically resulting in political impasse and turmoil.
The nation additionally emerged as a serious cocaine trafficking hub within the 2000s, based on specialists. Police on Saturday seized 2.63 tons of cocaine discovered on an airplane that arrived from Venezuela.
