Presidential election in Guinea-Bissau 2019

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 2019 presidential election in Guinea-Bissau took place on November 24 and December 29, 2019. The opposition candidate Umaro Sissoco Embaló won it in the second ballot. His swearing in against the will of the majority in parliament sparked a constitutional crisis. The Election Commission Comissão Nacional de Eleições (CNE; German: "National Election Commission") was responsible for the process.

Procedure

The presidential election takes place every five years. If no candidate achieves an absolute majority , there is a runoff election of the two most successful candidates five weeks later .

prehistory

In the 2014 election , José Mário Vaz ( Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde , PAIGC) won the vote. His term of office ended in June 2019 and he was only executive in office. However, he was the first president in the country's history to end his term in office.

In the parliamentary elections on March 10, 2019, the PAIGC won 47 of the 102 seats and formed a coalition government with several smaller parties . The PAIGC spin-off Movimento para Alternância Democrática (Madem G15 for short), founded in 2018, had received 27 seats.

More than 760,000 residents registered before the election.

Candidates

  • Embaló

  • Pereira

  • Nabiam

  • Vaz

Vaz appeared as an independent this time, as the PAIGC had chosen the former Prime Minister Domingos Simões Pereira . Other candidates included ex-general Umaro Sissoco Embaló, who belonged to Madem G15 and had also served as prime minister. He was supported by Senegal . Along with other politicians, Nuno Gomes Nabiam from the Assembleia do Povo Unido - Partido Democrático da Guiné-Bissau (APU-PDGB), who had reached the second ballot in the last election in 2014, ran for election. All twelve candidates were male.

First ballot

After the election on November 24th, the result was the following:

  • Domingos Simôes Pereira: 40.13%
  • Umaro Sissoco Embaló: 27.65%
  • Nuno Gomes Nabiam: 13.16%
  • José Mário Vaz: 12.40%

The remaining eight candidates each remained below three percent. The turnout was about 74%. Pereira and Embaló consequently reached the second ballot.

Second ballot

Embaló achieved 53.55% (293,359 votes) in the runoff election and was thus elected president, while Pereira received 46.45% (254,468 votes). The elections were described by political observers as free and transparent.

Done after the election

Pereira did not accept his defeat in the second ballot and described the result as electoral fraud . The West African Economic Community (CEDEAO) urged caution and suggested verifying the partial election results. The CNE confirmed Embaló's election victory, but the PAIGC again protested before the Supreme Court.

Embaló's inauguration took place on February 27, 2020, during which he swore himself in. Only two foreign guests attended, the ambassadors of Senegal and Gambia . The following day, Embaló named the third-place finisher in the first round, Nuno Gomes Nabiam, as Prime Minister. However, on February 29, the National Assembly proclaimed its President Cipriano Cassamá (PAIGC) as interim president; In addition, the majority consider Nabiam's predecessor Aristides Gomes to be Prime Minister. Cassamá resigned on March 1st after receiving death threats. ECOWAS urged the army to take a neutral stance in the conflict. On March 3rd, UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged all sides to be extremely restrained and await the decision of the Supreme Court.

On April 23, 2020, the CEDEAO recognized Embalò as President.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Guinea-Bissau election: Former PMs advance to runoff vote. aljazeera.com of November 27, 2019 (English), accessed January 5, 2020
  2. ^ A b Guinea-Bissau army deploys at state institutions as crisis deepens. africanews.com from March 1, 2020, accessed March 1, 2020
  3. ^ CNE: Resultados provisorios presidenciais. cne.gw (Portuguese), accessed January 5, 2020
  4. ↑ CNE: Divulgação dos resultados provisórios da segunda volta das presidenciais de 29 de December. cne.gw (Portuguese), accessed January 5, 2020
  5. ↑ a b Abdur Rahman Alfa Shaban: Fraud trails a presidential poll loss, this time in Guinea-Bissau. africanews.com, January 4, 2020, accessed January 5, 2020
  6. ↑ ECOWAS attempts to break political deadlock in Guinea-Bissau. africanews.com, January 31, 2020, accessed January 31, 2020
  7. ^ Antonio Cascais: Guinea-Bissau: Putsch or lawful change of power? dw.com on March 3, 2020, accessed on March 4, 2020
  8. ↑ Guinea Bissau: presidential inauguration set for February 27. garda.com of February 25, 2020, accessed on February 25, 2020
  9. ↑ Guinée-Bissau: Cipriano Cassama demissionne après des menaces de mort. jeuneafrique.com of March 1, 2020 (French), accessed on March 1, 2020
  10. ^ Secretary-General Concerned by Institutional Crisis in Guinea-Bissau. un.org of March 3, 2020, accessed on March 4, 2020
  11. ^ West African Bloc recognizes Guinea-Bissau's disputed president. voanews.com of April 23, 2020 (English), accessed April 24, 2020