Guinea-Bissau’s military junta, which seized power on November 26, has ruled that its interim president, General Horta N’Tam, will be barred from contesting future elections once the country returns to civilian rule. The decision was outlined in a new “charter of the transition” released late Monday, setting the legal framework for the military-led period expected to last one year.
The junta toppled outgoing president Umaro Sissoco Embalo shortly after the first round of the presidential election, suspending the electoral process and assuming control of the coup-prone West African nation. Its rapid appointment of N’Tam — a close ally of Embalo — as interim leader sparked speculation that the former president may have engineered the takeover to halt voting as he trailed at the polls.
According to the transition charter, neither N’Tam nor the junta-appointed prime minister will be allowed to run in the presidential or legislative elections scheduled after the transition. They are also prohibited from leading political parties.
The document additionally proposes an amnesty law covering “acts of subversion of the constitutional order on November 26, 2025,” to be approved by a junta-appointed legislative council.
The military has offered shifting justifications for the coup, initially citing threats from powerful drug-trafficking networks, before later claiming its intervention was necessary to prevent ethnic conflict. Analysts, opposition figures, and observers have questioned these accounts, suggesting the coup may have been orchestrated to interrupt an unfavourable electoral outcome for Embalo.
Paulino Quade, a legal scholar at Amilcar Cabral University, cautioned that the junta’s stated one-year transition timeline should be treated with skepticism. “There is room for doubt about the length of the transitional period because, when it comes to the military, caution is needed when interpreting their statements,” he said.
Guinea-Bissau, independent from Portugal since 1974, has experienced four successful military coups and numerous attempted insurrections, underscoring its long-standing political volatility.
