Guinea Bissau in serious crisis as president sacks prime minister

The troubled west African nation of Guinea-Bissau has been plunged into fresh political turmoil after the president sacked the government.

President Jose Mario Vaz said there was a crisis in relations with the prime minister that was undermining the functioning of government.

“The government headed by Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira has been dissolved,” a presidential decree said bluntly on Thursday evening.

Despite concerns about the potential fallout from the crisis, life on Bissau streets carried on as usual, with no extra deployment of security forces.

The army, quick to intervene in past political disputes in the coup-prone former Portuguese colony, remained in the barracks.

The 16-member government took office in July 2014, two months after Mr Vaz became Guinea-Bissau’s first elected civilian leader since the army mutinied in 2012.

Mr Vaz and Mr Pereira are members of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde which fought for independence from Portugal, won in 1974.

The party, which has a slender majority in the national assembly with 57 MPs out of 102, was expected to meet at executive level to consider naming a new prime minister, according to sources in the PAIGC, which is led by Pereira.

“It is public knowledge that there is a crisis undermining the proper working of institutions,” Mr Vaz said in a broadcast to the nation.

He said efforts at reconciliation between himself and Mr Pereira had failed.

“Even if all members of the government were dismissed from their posts, a cabinet reshuffle would not solve the crisis of confidence in the state leadership,” he added.

The president said his dispute with Mr Pereira arose from a number of issues, including the appointment of a new armed forces chief, a post of key influence in the small nation ill-famed as a hub in drug trafficking between South America and Europe.

In March 2009, political veteran Joao Bernardo “Nino” Vieira, who had led the country on and off since 1980, was assassinated by soldiers in apparent revenge for the killing of the then army chief.
“For two weeks, we have been in a state of alert, but confined to barracks,” a senior military source said.

He said army chief Biague Namtam, who was appointed in September, has “asked us to stay out of the political arena”.

Mr Vaz also raised the closure of the border with Guinea over an Ebola outbreak and cited problems of corruption and nepotism, a lack of transparency in public procurement and alleged obstruction of the judiciary.

Last week, Mr Pereira announced that his government would likely be dissolved due to differences of opinion with Mr Vaz.

At a press conference on Thursday, he rejected Mr Vaz’s claims against him and said he would use legal means to once again lead the government.

“If the president asks the PAIGC to propose the name of the future prime minister, it will be me,” he said.

The European Union said the 2014 elections brought the country on a path of democratic governance and warned that the recent developments put at risk the positive dynamics of reconstruction.