Guinea-Bissau’s president said he had been deposed in a coup, but political opponents accused the leader of staging the revolt in order to cling to power.
The military said it had taken over from President Umaro Sissoco Embaló just a day before electoral results were due. But the country’s opposition leader accused Embaló of faking the coup because he knew he would lose the vote. If successful, the coup would be the fourth in Guinea-Bissau’s short history since independence in 1973, and would make the small West African nation the latest regional democracy to fall under military control.
Since the start of the decade, several democratically elected governments have been replaced by strongmen, with policymakers calling the region Africa’s “coup belt.”
