Ecowas rejects Guinea-Bissau transitional plan
Publish date: 15 December 2025
Issue Number: 1156
Diary: IBA Legalbrief Africa
Category: General
The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), which met on Sunday to discuss the crisis in Guinea-Bissau after the military ousted the civilian government, has rejected the junta's transition programme, notes Legalbrief. Instead, Ecowas has demanded a swift return to constitutional order, warning of targeted sanctions against those obstructing the process, reports CNBC Africa. Army officers in Guinea-Bissau, branding themselves the Military High Command, toppled President Umaro Sissoco Embalo on 26 November and installed Major-General Horta Inta-a as interim President the following day. Guinea-Bissau’s coup is the ninth in West and Central Africa in five years, deepening concerns over democratic backsliding in a region already grappling with insecurity and political instability. Leaders at Ecowas’ annual summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja called for the immediate release of all political detainees, including opposition figures, and insisted on an inclusive short transition in Guinea-Bissau. ‘What Ecowas leaders have resolved to do, is to ensure that there is zero tolerance for unconstitutional change of government,’ said Omar Touray, president of the Ecowas Commission. Ecowas said that elections held on 23 November were deemed free and transparent by its own observers, the African Union and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. Ecowas also mandated its chair to lead a high-level delegation to Guinea-Bissau for talks with the junta. If the junta failed to comply with the Ecowas demands, the bloc would impose targeted sanctions against individuals or groups blocking the transition, the bloc said, urging the African Union and international partners to support its efforts.
Earlier in the week, the junta adopted a 12-month transitional charter that bars the interim President and Prime Minister from running in the next elections. This came two weeks after officers staged a coup that suspended the Constitution, reports Peoples Gazette Nigeria. The charter requires presidential and legislative elections to be held at the end of the one-year transitional period, with the polling date to be set by the transitional President. The coup came one day before the electoral commission was due to announce the results of presidential and legislative elections. The Military High Command will control legal and institutional reforms during the transition, including drafting revisions to the suspended Constitution, setting up a new Constitutional Court responsible for changing regulations for political parties, and overseeing the appointment of new electoral officials, according to the charter. A 65-member National Transition Council, including 10 senior army officers representing the Military High Command, will serve as a transitional legislative body, according to the charter.
Ahead of the Ecowas meeting held by regional heads to address the crisis, hundreds marched through Guinea-Bissau’s capital, protesting last month’s military coup and demanding the release of opposition leaders, reports Channel Africa. Protesters clashed with security forces in Bissau, burning tyres and calling for the release of Domingos Simoes Pereira, head of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), who was detained during the coup, according to relatives and security sources. ‘We do not recognise the transitional government,’ civil society activist Vigario Luis Balanta said at a press conference on Friday, urging a general strike and a week of civil disobedience. The transitional military government could not be immediately reached for comment. ‘We are the youth and we are the future of this country’, said demonstrator Antonio Sami. ‘We will never, ever accept that our sovereignty be called into question.’
Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Guinea and Gabon have all suffered regime change in the past five years, led by men in military uniform, writes Ernest Harsch in The Converstion. ‘Madagascar and Guinea-Bissau experienced the same fate in 2025. Benin looked to join the list in early December, but the civilian government held onto power – just.’ Harsch says the academic literature on coups in Africa has highlighted a wide range of influences and triggers. These include: personal and institutional rifts within the armed forces' susceptibility to both elite manipulation and popular pressureinstigation by foreign powers against governments deemed hostile to their interests.He suggests that in order to better protect democracy in Africa, it is not sufficient to simply condemn military coups (as Africa’s regional institutions, such as the African Union and Economic Community of West African States, are quick to do). ‘African activists, and some policymakers, have urged a step further: denouncing elected leaders who violate democratic rights or rig their systems to hang onto power. If elected leaders were better held to account, then potential coup makers would lose one of their central justifications.’
The problems, Harsch notes, however, go beyond rigged polls, errant elected leaders and violated Constitutions. ‘Many African governments, whether they are democratic or not, have great difficulty meeting citizens’ expectations, especially for improvements in their daily lives. The deeper structural weaknesses of African states further contribute to hampering effective governance.’ He states in The Conversation analysis that in particular, a neoliberal model of democracy has been widely adopted in Africa since the 1990s. ‘That model insists that democracy be tethered to pro-market economic policies and greatly limit the size and activities of African states. That in turn hinders the ability of even well-elected governments to provide their citizens with security and services.’ He believes that coup proofing’ African states will also require giving greater scope to popular input into real decision making, in both the political and economic spheres. ‘That will depend primarily on Africans themselves fighting for the democracies they want. Clearing the way for them means ending the all-too-common repression of street mobilisations and alternative views that displease the ruling elites.’
