In the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, a familiar pattern of political upheaval has played out once again. Just days after a tightly contested presidential election on November 23, 2025, soldiers seized power in the capital, Bissau. The coup, which marks the country’s fifth since independence from Portugal in 1974, has thrown Guinea-Bissau into a fresh state of uncertainty, drawing swift international condemnation and prompting urgent calls for the restoration of constitutional order.
According to the Associated Press, the military takeover began on November 26, three days after voters went to the polls. The army moved quickly to arrest the sitting president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and imposed a curfew across the city. Tanks and armed soldiers appeared on the streets, checkpoints sprang up overnight, and the country’s borders—land, air, and sea—were sealed. The provisional results of the election, which both Embaló and his main challenger, Fernando Dias da Costa, claimed to have won, were never announced. The opposition accused Embaló of orchestrating the coup to avoid an electoral defeat, a charge that added fuel to an already volatile situation.
Life in Bissau, the coastal capital, ground to a halt. Markets, banks, and schools shuttered their doors. Public transport was suspended, and a blanket ban was placed on social media. But by November 28, as reported by AFP and other international outlets, the situation began to stabilize. The new military authorities, under the leadership of General Horta N'Tam (also referred to as Horta Inta-a in some reports), lifted the curfew and reopened the borders. Vehicles and taxis returned to the main roads, merchants and shoppers trickled back into the city’s markets, and commercial banks resumed operations. Security checkpoints, while still present in some areas, were relaxed in others, signaling a tentative return to normalcy.
General Horta N'Tam, the army chief of staff who emerged as the country’s transitional leader, wasted no time consolidating his grip on power. On November 27, he was officially named transitional president for a proposed one-year period. The very next day, he announced by decree the appointment of Ilídio Vieira Té, the former finance minister and a close ally of the deposed president Embaló, as the new prime minister. Vieira Té, who had also served as Embaló’s campaign director during the recent election, was tasked with overseeing both the finance ministry and the prime minister’s office, at least temporarily. In a further reshuffling of the country’s leadership, N'Tam appointed Tomás Djassi as the new head of the armed forces.
The military junta, officially named the High Military Command for the Restoration of National Security and Public Order, justified its actions by alleging that a plan was afoot—supposedly with the backing of narcotraffickers—to capture Guinea-Bissau’s democracy. According to Infobae, N'Tam accused these criminal networks of supporting a coup plot in the wake of the disputed election, a claim that has become a recurring theme in the country’s turbulent political narrative. Guinea-Bissau, home to just 2.2 million people, has long served as a key transit point for drug trafficking between Latin America and Europe, a reality that has only deepened its chronic instability.
The international response was swift and unequivocal. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the region’s main political and economic bloc, suspended Guinea-Bissau from its decision-making bodies on November 27, pending the full restoration of constitutional order. ECOWAS also announced it would send a high-level mediation team—including the presidents of Togo, Cape Verde, and Senegal—to Bissau to engage directly with the coup leaders. The bloc warned that it reserved the right to impose sanctions on those found responsible for disrupting the country’s democratic process. ECOWAS has struggled in recent years to contain a wave of coups across West Africa, with similar crises in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso leading to the withdrawal of those countries from the bloc earlier in 2025.
Senegal, Guinea-Bissau’s neighbor to the north, played a key role in the immediate aftermath of the coup. The Senegalese government chartered a flight to evacuate Embaló, who arrived in Dakar on November 27. Senegal’s foreign ministry pledged to work with international partners to help restore democracy in Guinea-Bissau. Meanwhile, Senegal’s prime minister, Ousmane Sonko, described the military takeover as a “plot” and echoed calls for the release of detained opposition members. “The democratic process must be carried out to the end and the results must be announced,” Sonko said during a parliamentary session, as reported by the Associated Press.
While calm has largely returned to Bissau, the human rights situation remains deeply concerning. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, expressed alarm over reports of arbitrary arrests of politicians and opposition leaders, intimidation of journalists, and the use of excessive force by security forces. Turk’s office documented at least 18 cases of arbitrary detention, with most detainees held incommunicado. Several independent radio stations were temporarily closed, and internet access was suspended for two days following the coup. “I am deeply alarmed by reports of human rights violations in Guinea-Bissau after the coup, including arbitrary arrests and detentions of government officials and opposition leaders, as well as threats and intimidation of media and journalists,” Turk said, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained.
The political landscape remains fractured. Both Embaló and Dias da Costa continue to claim victory in the annulled election. The main opposition candidate, Domingos Simoes Pereira, was barred from running, prompting his influential party, PAIGC-CV, to throw its support behind Dias da Costa. Embaló, who came to power in February 2020 after the country’s first peaceful transfer of power, had previously survived two coup attempts in 2022 and 2023. His tenure has been marked by persistent political rivalry and legal challenges from the opposition, as well as mounting frustration over the lack of progress in tackling poverty and corruption.
Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute for Peace Studies in Senegal, told AP that the situation in Guinea-Bissau remains highly uncertain. “We are in a state of total uncertainty, trapped between an incomplete electoral process and a disruption of constitutional order caused by a coup, which has led to contradictory interpretations and several questions,” Sambe noted. He added that ECOWAS seems to be taking a more cautious approach this time, learning from past mistakes in Niger and elsewhere.
As Guinea-Bissau’s citizens tentatively resume their daily routines, the future of the country’s democracy hangs in the balance. The coming weeks will likely determine whether the military leadership follows through on its promise of a one-year transition and whether international pressure can steer the nation back toward constitutional rule. For now, Guinea-Bissau remains at a crossroads, its fragile institutions tested once again by the enduring cycle of coups and contested elections.
