Pretoria, Oct. 2, 2024 (Lusa) - Analyst Paulin Maurice Toupane, from South Africa's Institute for Security Studies, advocates political consultation in Guinea-Bissau to postpone the legislative elections scheduled for 24 November as a way of overcoming the lack of institutional legitimacy.

According to Toupane, a senior researcher in the West Africa and Sahel Department of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), "along with the increase in political tensions in recent years", the elections "risk reinforcing institutional fragility" in the country.

The analyst suggests that Guinea-Bissau's political players consider "the possibility of combining the legislative and presidential elections and moving them to a later date agreed by all stakeholders", allowing time to "resolve the current institutional dysfunctions and legitimacy problems, with the election of National Electoral Commission (CNE) and Supreme Court personnel being an essential precondition".

It would be a fundamental measure to "create trust and security in these institutions among the political actors, it would be an opportunity for the parties involved to reach a consensus on the date of the next presidential elections" and "above all, it would prevent the President's legitimacy from being called into question after his term expires in February - a situation that could further undermine the fragility of the country's institutions," he emphasises.

On 24 November, the new members of Guinea-Bissau's People's National Parliament (ANP) will be elected and, although these elections would normally contribute to democratisation and political stability in Guinea-Bissau, "they are being organised by institutions that are considered to have lost their legitimacy", he says.

However, the elections are necessary following the President's controversial dissolution of the ANP last December, Toupane believes.

The dissolved ANP was dominated by the Inclusive Alliance Platform (PAI)-Terra Ranka coalition, led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde (PAIGC), which achieved an absolute majority by electing 54 of the 102 seats in the June 2023 legislative elections.

This was the second time Embaló dissolved the ANP - the first was in May 2022. Like the initial dissolution, the latest was apparently motivated by a desire to change the institutional power dynamics that constrained Embaló and left him little room for manoeuvre.

The official pretext for the dissolution was clashes between some members of the National Guard and special forces of the Presidential Guard - which Sissoco Embaló described as a coup attempt.

For the ISS analyst, as Guinea-Bissau gets closer to going to the polls, "it continues to be affected by serious institutional shortcomings and political tensions that threaten the entire electoral process".

One of the main shortcomings concerns the illegitimacy of the National Electoral Commission (CNE) - the mandate of its president and members of the executive secretariat expired in April 2022 and has not yet been renewed.

"The situation seems to have persisted for two main reasons. The first is the government's desire to exercise some control over the CNE. Secondly, the ANP has been unable to elect a new speaker and new members of the CNE's executive secretariat due to the dissolutions," explains the analyst.

The ANP Standing Committee, currently the only functioning body of parliament, could elect the members of the CNE. However, it cannot meet because the government controls the leadership of the ANP and has replaced Domingos Simões Pereira with Satú Camará Pinto, an ally of Sissoco Embaló.

"To make matters worse, there is the paralysis of the Supreme Court of Justice, which is also the result of a struggle for control by political actors, especially on the eve of elections," says the analyst.

In Guinea-Bissau, the Supreme Court is mandated to review and validate the eligibility of political candidates and verify and declare the final results of elections, and is also responsible for resolving electoral disputes.

However, since the forced resignation of the president of the Supreme Court, José Pedro Sambu, last November, the body "has been dysfunctional and unable to fulfil its electoral mandate," he adds.

Toupane also says that "there are suspicions about the personal relationships" between Sissoco Embaló and the interim president of the court and the impact this could have on the electoral process.

"This fact became clear during the interviews that the Institute for Security Studies conducted in Bissau. The creation of the committee also violates the laws governing the organisation and functioning of the court, including its electoral mandate," he warns.

"Any rejection by the court of the candidacy of opposition leaders could be interpreted as an attempt to eliminate the President's opponents," in a context in which Sissoco Embaló has declared that his successor would not be Simões Pereira or two other opposition politicians, Braima Camará or Nuno Gomes Nabiam, argues the ISS analyst.

As a result, neither the CNE nor the Supreme Court can organise or supervise the legislative elections and, "if the situation is not to degenerate and the political crisis is not to worsen, Sissoco Embaló must engage in dialogue with the political and institutional players in order to reach a broad consensus that will restore institutional normality".

"This objective is all the more important given the tensions surrounding the end of his mandate and the date of the next presidential elections," with some opposition political parties already stating that the current President will no longer be considered as such as of 27 February 2025, the date on which his mandate constitutionally ends.

The analyst also argues that, as the date of the elections approaches, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) - in its capacity as guarantor of the country's stabilisation process - "should intervene to help create the conditions for a peaceful and credible election".

EL/AYLS // AYLS

Lusa