Embaló-ver Again: Guinea Bissau’s Leader Seeks Another Term

March 10th, 2025

Brogan Jones

Umaro Sissoco Embaló's five-year term as president of Guinea-Bissau officially expired on February 28 of this year. However, the current president of the west African nation has no intention of vacating the office he currently holds, nor does he plan to step down as a candidate for president in the upcoming elections, which are currently slated for November of 2025. Embaló, who first took office on February 28 of 2020, is no stranger to controversy. Even the means by which he became president have been questioned, with Guinea-Bissau's 2020 election results being scrutinized. The controversy did not stop there, however, as most of the former army general’s first term has been a series of unfortunate events for the president.

Aside from its latest scandal, Guinea-Bissau is not a country without its own slew of issues. The former Portuguese colony, which only gained independence in 1974, has had many problems in sorting out its politics. From dealing with political corruption to fighting for their democracy, the citizens of Guinea-Bissau have been put through the governmental ringer. A key indicator of this is the fact that the nation had the same president for most of its existence. That would be João Bernardo Vieira, who was the nation’s president from 1980-1999 and then again from 2005-2009. His second term was cut abruptly short, however, due to the president's assassination. Following Vieira’s death, the country’s politics snowballed from there. The office of the president became plagued with acting presidents, at least 10 coups or attempted coups, military leaders taking power, the same candidates holding office multiple times, and widespread democratic backsliding.

Despite several violent coup attempts also taking place under the current administration, most of the political turmoil surrounding Embaló’s presidency has come from his mishandling of elections. Due to an executive decree issued by the president, the nation has been without a parliament since late 2023. While this certainly increased Embaló’s power as the ultimate arbiter of the law in the country, the president has also directly held onto control in apparent “power-grabbing” attempts, which have only angered the citizenry of Guinea-Bissau. One such example came when the president postponed the November 2024 legislative elections. Following that controversial decision, the president stated that he would not run for a second term. However, just as his term expired last week, Embaló changed his tune and said that he would now seek reelection.

Embaló’s doubling-back wasn’t the only action taken by the president that sparked outrage and dominated headlines in this past week alone. Possibly an even more accurate indicator of the country’s future democracy came via the West-African president’s treatment of the West African regional bloc, Ecowas. The organization, which deployed a mission to Guinea-Bissau to resolve the issue over how to handle elections this year, left the country following threats from Embaló to expel it. Ecowas had gone to the region in the first place following the opposition party’s outrage over the president refusing to vacate the office on the 28 of February. Embaló’s refusal to cooperate with the organization just seemed to underline his blatant disregard for legitimate democratic processes.

With democracy declining globally at unprecedented rates, it is essential that no nation in any part of the world falls victim to authoritarianism. While larger nations are consistently dominating the news cycles with reports of democratic backsliding, even more extreme examples of this are occurring in smaller nations like Guinea-Bissau. As the country’s general election draws nearer, it will be key to keep an eye on whether or not the election actually transpires when it is supposed to and whether or not Guinea-Bissau has any hope of escaping the political turmoil that it has been caught up in for much too long.