Guinea-Bissau says 6 December elections cannot go ahead, postponement expected

Government and electoral commission reject the 6 December date

Guinea-Bissau's transitional prime minister, Ilídio Vieira Té, told reporters on Thursday, 8 October, that the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for 6 December cannot be held. He spoke after meeting transitional president General Horta Inta-a, who is also spelled Horta N'Tam in RFI's French coverage. The National Electoral Commission (CNE) reached the same view, with spokesperson Felisberta Moura Vaz calling a vote on that date technically improbable. Vieira Té did not name a new date. The decision now rests with the transitional president, who is expected to issue a presidential decree that first cancels the December vote and then sets a new one.

Vieira Té blamed missed legal deadlines and expired governing bodies of several parties for the impasse. He put it this way:

All these deadlines we are talking about were not met, which makes it impossible to hold elections on 6 December.

Missed deadlines and a frozen political scene

Vieira Té said many parties have expired governing bodies and have not held the congresses needed to renew them. Under the law, candidate filings with the Supreme Court of Justice were due by 6 October, and that date has passed. Domingos Simões Pereira, the deposed president of the National People's Assembly and leader of the PAIGC, said last Tuesday that the elections could not take place on 6 December for the same reason. He added that with political activity not permitted in Guinea-Bissau, campaigning is not materially possible. In a statement, Madem-G15 said the ban on party activities since the events of 26 November 2025 has compromised the functioning of political structures. The opposition parties PAIGC, MADEM-G15 and APU-PDGB favour a postponement.

The CNE spokesperson gave a similar account after her meeting with the president. She told reporters:

There are peremptory deadlines that must be observed, and they were not.

The commission said it had given the transitional president detailed information, and that the decision now lies with him.

Military rule and the transition

The takeover came on 26 November 2025 according to most reports, when the military overthrew President Umaro Sissoco Embaló and suspended the electoral process, though one RFI report gives 25 November. La Libre says the presidential and legislative votes had been held on 23 November, the day before provisional results were due. The junta has since barred former president Embaló from returning to the country, citing security conditions, in a decision RFI describes as taken last Sunday. The transitional president, General Horta Inta-a, first disarmed members of the presidential guard, who were close security for Embaló. On Wednesday he called on everyone still holding weapons to surrender them, and he dismissed the interior minister. Political analyst Rui Semedo, interviewed by RFI, called for a national dialogue involving political actors and civil society to set the timing of the process. He said:

It is now up to the military committee to show whether they really want to bring the country back to democracy.

Regional reaction

In Lisbon, Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel spoke at a colloquium marking 30 years of the CPLP, the Community of Portuguese Language Countries, at the Centro Cultural de Belém. Guinea-Bissau has been suspended from CPLP activities since December 2025 following the coup. Rangel said he hopes the situation is overcome quickly so the community can again count on all its members. He put the matter directly:

We in the CPLP, and I will say so expressly, without any problem, have a concern today, which is Guinea-Bissau.

The 6 December vote was meant to return power to civilians. The transitional president is expected to announce the postponement and a new date, though no new date has been named yet.