Africa-Press – Cape verde. The PAI-Terra Ranka coalition, which won the last elections in Guinea-Bissau with an absolute majority, today considered that the country’s problem “is the assailants of power” who have prevented the winners from governing.
The coalition led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) held a press conference today to take stock of the country’s political situation, more than a month after the decision of the President of the Republic, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, to dissolve parliament and replace the government.
“We have already won the elections seven times and they won’t let us govern”, said the coalition spokesman, Muniro Conte, also presented as a spokesman “for the legitimate Government”, as he held the same role in the Government of the PAI-Terra coalition Ranka deposed by the President.
For the coalition that won the last legislative elections, “the problem in Guinea-Bissau is the assailants of power who do not respect the verdict at the polls, the word of the people at the polls”.
The spokesperson read a statement and answered questions from journalists to emphasize that the president of the coalition, PAIGC and the National Popular Assembly, Domingos Simões Pereira, won, for the third time, in June 2023, and once again the coalition which it represents is prevented from governing, with the presidential decision, on December 4, 2023, to dissolve parliament, despite the Constitution not allowing this within 12 months after the election.
“They never let us govern. We have already won seven elections and they will not let us govern”, he insisted, specifying that three consecutive elections and three victories coincided with the leadership of Domingos Simões Pereira.
Muniro Conte added that in Guinea-Bissau “there are parties that did not win the same number of elections as PAIGC and have more years of governance, without winning elections”.
“Do you think this is fair”, he asked.
The coalition spokesperson emphasized that this message is a “message to opponents, but also to those who operate the party’s internal democracy in an inelegant way”.
Muniro Conte stressed that “PAIGC wins at the polls and refuses violence” to refer to the march called by the coalition for January 8th to restore the constitutional order.
When asked by journalists about the lack of participation, he replied that “there was no failure” and that the initiative “was publicized in all international press bodies, even organizations such as the African Union, ECOWAS, published this march on their websites”.
The coalition talks about repression and the launch of tear gas by the police forces that occupied the main arteries of the city of Bissau on the day of the call, with tanks and heavily armed elements.
During the early hours of the morning of the 8th, Lusa traveled through the arteries of Bissau and found no protesters, which the coalition spokesperson justified by claiming that the march was planned for Chapa de Bissau, but the headquarters of the United Nations as a resource because the police are “beating and arresting”.
“That idea (of changing location) was brilliant because now the United Nations, even if they turned a blind eye to what is happening in Guinea-Bissau, the incidents that happened in front of the facilities give reason to face the problems in Guinea-Bissau as such,” he stated.
PAIGC published, on the party’s official page, a video showing a crowd of people, pockets of smoke, sounds apparently of gunshots and members of the police forces on a street.
“Perhaps, if the protesters had not been repressed with tear gas, we would have had a public equal to the last day of the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition campaign”, considered Muniro Conte.
The march was scheduled for a day when leader Domingos Simões Pereira was in Portugal, where he participated in the Socialist Party (PS) congress.
“This is another bluff from our opponents, that the president of the PAIGC has to be here, just give instructions”, stated Muniro Conte, pointing out that the historic leader Amílcar Cabral “never took the lead in the armed struggle”.
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