Guinea-Bissau - 2012 Elections + Coup
Guinea-Bissau is a multiparty republic. It is ruled by a transition government led by interim President Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo until elections initially expected in 2013. On 18 March 2012, presidential elections were held to replace former president Malam Bacai Sanha of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), who died on January 9. A military coup on April 12 interrupted the electoral process before the second round.
Serious human rights abuses included arbitrary killings and detentions; official corruption, exacerbated by government officials’ impunity and suspected involvement in drug trafficking; and a lack of respect for the rights of citizens to elect their government. Other human rights abuses included torture, poor conditions of detention, lack of judicial independence and due process, interference with privacy, restrictions on the freedoms of the press and assembly, violence and discrimination against women, trafficking of children, and child labor, including some forced labor. The government did not take effective steps to prosecute or punish officials who committed abuses, whether in the security services or elsewhere in the government. Impunity was a serious problem.
The World Bank’s most recent Worldwide Governance Indicators reflected that corruption was a severe problem. Members of the military and civilian administration reportedly trafficked in drugs and assisted international drug cartels by providing access to the country and its transportation infrastructure. According to a 2008 UN report and the findings of UNIOGBIS, the country was rapidly becoming a major transit point and logistical hub in the drug trade.
There were frequent instances in which elements of the security forces acted independently of civilian control. Police were generally ineffective, poorly and irregularly paid, and corrupt. They could not afford fuel for the few vehicles they had and there was a severe lack of training. Transit police often demanded bribes from vehicle drivers whether their documents and vehicles were in order or not. Lack of police detention facilities frequently resulted in prisoners walking out of custody during investigations.
Following the January death of President Sanha, interim president Raimundo Pereira scheduled the first round of the presidential election, which was held on March 18. Preparations were rushed and the electoral register was not fully updated, yet international observers characterized the polling process as generally free and fair. The evening of the first voting round, Colonel Samba Djalo, former chief of the Military Information and Security Service, was shot and killed by persons in civilian clothes with “military-style” weapons.
National Election Commission President Lima da Costa announced the next morning that the electoral process would continue with military support but that the results would take at least until March 24 or 25 to calculate. Candidates Kumba Yala and interim President Nhamadjo announced later that they had proof of fraud in the voter register and voter cards. Yala and PAIGC candidate Carlos Gomes Junior were declared the winners of the first round and a run-off was scheduled for April 22, later postponed until April 29, but Yala and four other candidates announced that they would boycott.
Elements of the armed forces attacked the home of presidential candidate and former prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior on the evening of April 12. They took control of radio and television stations, seized PAIGC party headquarters, and detained then interim president Raimundo Pereira and Carlos Gomes Junior. Coup leaders claimed to be reacting to heightened Angolan military mission intervention in Guinea-Bissau but to have “no ambition for power.” The Economic Community of West African States brokered a transition pact signed on May 18 by most political parties but not the majority PAIGC. On October 21, an attempted countercoup resulted in several deaths but no shift of power.
The transition government presented a plan to political parties on July 21 for preparing and holding legislative and presidential elections by the end of the transition period. Preparations were in progress despite a lack of commitments for funding. Until the coup formal membership in the dominant party conferred political advantages. The Balanta ethnic group, mainly through its predominance in the armed forces, maintained some influence in the political system. Youth political participation was restricted in the presidential elections because the voter list was not updated to include those who had come of voting age since 2008.
The 98-member National Assembly had 10 female members. The Supreme Court president, two of nine state secretaries, and approximately 10 percent of senior advisors also were women. On March 9, the Women’s Political Platform convinced seven of the nine presidential candidates to sign a political declaration to push for women’s rights, including through municipal elections with female candidates, although no benchmarks were specified.
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