President issues challenge to convene Parliament

Guinea-Bissau's President Jose Mario Vaz dared his adversaries to open Parliament on Friday, threatening the administration of his own party after its failure to sit for more than a year. A report on the News24 site notes that the West African state has been in the grip of a power struggle since August 2015, when Vaz sacked then-Premier Domingos Simoes Pereira, leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC). A new Prime Minister, Umaro Sissoco Embalo, was sworn in last December but the PAIGC rejected him, accusing Vaz of breaching an agreement calling for a consensual choice. ‘If you don't believe that this government has the majority required to vote through its programme, call parliament to sit,’ President Vaz said in a statement during a gathering in Bissau.