Eminent Africans Demand Release of Guinea-Bissau Election Results

A group of 20 eminent Africans, including a former President of Cabo Verde Pedro Pires, ex-Foreign Minister José Brito, former senior ECOWAS officials, heads of International bodies and civil society organizations, have in a joint statement, demanded the immediate release of results of the 23 November legislative and presidential elections in Guinea-Bissau and the winner declared.

“ECOWAS must demand the truth (about the elections), protect the winner and request the freeing of the political actors being detained by the military junta,” the group said in the statement titled “Restoring Constitutional Order and the Rule of Law In Guinea-Bissau.”

“…taking into account an opinion widely shared in West Africa and throughout the rest of the continent, …we take the liberty to invite the ECOWAS Heads of State, who are meeting in a Summit, on 14th December to make a bold move towards solving the current crisis afflicting one of the most fragile (states) of… the community,” the statement added.

According to the group, “What prompted us to act is (that) under the threat of security services and the army, the National Electoral Commission, CNE was forced to declare its inability… to continue the compilation of the election results and to announce them.”

“It (CNE) said that the military had destroyed and/or taken away the documents and data needed for releasing the election results recorded in Guinea-Bissau’s eight regions, in a desperate attempt to destroy the archives,” the statement said.

Saying that “it is not late to salvage the democratic aspirations, based on the tenets of the rule of law in Guinea-Bissau,” the statement said: “We salute the convening of a virtual summit by the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government… in the aftermath of the (26 November) putsch as well as its condemnation of the staged coup undertaken by key military officers all closely linked to the outgoing president (Umaro Sissoco Embaló.”

“We are also pleased with the decision to send a mission to Bissau conducted by the current Chairperson of the ECOWAS Authority, President Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone,” the group added.

“As active members of the civil society from across Africa, we cannot keep quiet in the face of such blatant violations that Guinea-Bissau suffered…,” the statement said. “Accepting that a group of military and political players collude to deprive their compatriots… the right to freely choose their leaders through transparent elections would signal to the whole of West Africa that the only rule… is that of the most powerful.”

The group denounced the “comic arrest of the outgoing President Embaló, who rushed to inform the whole world, in a suspicious enthusiasm, that he had been deposed, while the army went to the headquarters of the national electoral commission, CNE, where the election results were being compiled for release the next day and took over machines and documents pertaining to the electoral results, arresting officials close to the opposition camp against outgoing president, who was seeking re-election.”

“We are shocked by this brutal intrusion of the army aiming to interrupt an electoral process to which citizens of Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral’s country, held high hopes to the last minute,” the group added.

It said that “other stakeholders, from the continent and beyond, in particular the African Union, United Nations and the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) must also play a role in this crucial moment for Guinea-Bissau towards political and constitutional stability in a West African region already stricken by deep security, economic and political crises.”

“We also invite the African public opinion and the rest of the world to express by all legal means their refusal of the undemocratic maneuvers underway in Guinea-Bissau, while paying tribute to the maturity of its people,” the statement said.

“We believe that Guinea-Bissau deserves to be supported to conclude its electoral process, the building of democratic institutions and a rule of law-based State,” the group said, adding that the “argument claiming an impossibility to finalize the electoral process and announce the outcome, owing to the brutal military infringement, and the threats on the members of the electoral commission and other important political players, is not acceptable.”

The statement quoted various sources as saying that “copies, even the original versions, of the election tallies have been preserved and it will only take a coordinated international pressure to have them published.”

Embaló was evacuated by Senegalese President Diomaye Faye to Dakar, but because of the protest by the Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who dismissed the Guinea-Bissau coup as a “sham,” Embaló has moved to Congo-Brazzaville.

Latest reports said he has again moved to Morocco on his way to Portugal, with an alleged plan to return to Guinea-Bissau to reclaim political power from his crony-military officers.

The joint statement was signed by former President of Cabo Verde Pedro Pires, former Minister of Foreign Affairs Cabo Verde José Brito, former Executive Secretary, ECOWAS Dr Abass Bundu, former CPLP Secretary General Ambassador Luis Fonseca, former ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace & Security, and Finance Hajia Halima Ahmed, former CODESRIA Executive Secretary Dr Olukeshi Adebayo, Director of Policy Engagement, Centre for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana) Dr. Kojo Asante, and Senior Fellow, CDD-Nigeria Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim.

Human Rights activist and former Secretary-General, West African Bar AssociationBarr Femi Falana, (SAN), former ECOWAS Communication Director Mr Adama Gaye, Chairman, Media Companies, Guinea-Conakry Mr Lamine Guirassy, Founder and former Executive Director, Media Foundation for West AfricaProf. Kwame Karikari, Emeritus Professor Takyiwaa Manuh of University of Ghana, New-York-basedProf Mahmoud Mamdani, Prof El Hadji Ibrahima Mboup from Senegal, Journalist from Congo-Brazzaville Mr Nicole Mikolo, Human Rights Lawyer and Founder, Centre for Leadership and Women’s Rights, Gambia Fatou Jagne Senghore, Cameroonian Economist Dr Jean-Pierre Tchanou, President, AfrikaJom Centre, SenegalDr Alioune Tine, and Founder, Wathi Think-Tank, Benin Dr. Gilles Yabi.