Everything changes on November 26, 2025. As the country awaits the results of a presidential and legislative double vote held three days earlier, a vote that international observers had judged free and transparent, the army seizes power. Outgoing president Umaro Sissoco Embaló, running for his own succession against rival Fernando Dias, is arrested and removed from office.
The following day, General Horta N’Tam, until then army chief of staff, is sworn in as transitional president and takes charge of a High Command for the Restoration of Order. He announces a one-year transition, a timeline met with skepticism by many observers, since previous coups in the region have often seen the military extend its grip on power well beyond promised deadlines. Borders, briefly closed, reopen quickly, but the High Command imposes strict restrictions on the media, banning any commentary or reporting on the political situation.
Umaro Sissoco Embaló, for his part, begins a wandering exile: first taking refuge in Dakar, then welcomed in Brazzaville by president Denis Sassou Nguesso, before a possible move to Morocco is floated.
Facing the coup, ECOWAS reacts firmly at first, brandishing the threat of sanctions. The regional body sends several high-level missions to Bissau, the most notable on January 10, 2026, led by Sierra Leonean president Julius Maada Bio, then serving as ECOWAS chairman, alongside Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye. The message is clear: release political prisoners, form an inclusive government, and organize credible elections quickly. But over the following months, several voices within the Guinea-Bissau opposition, notably within the PAI-Terra Ranka coalition, denounce a shift in the regional body’s stance, one they describe as moving from an unequivocal condemnation of the coup to a form of culpable passivity toward the junta.
Under this diplomatic pressure, General Horta N’Tam eventually sets, by presidential decree on January 21, 2026, the date for presidential and legislative elections at December 6. In line with the transitional charter adopted in early December 2025, the junta leader commits not to run in the vote, a guarantee meant to reassure observers of the process’s sincerity. Still, the credibility of this electoral rendezvous will depend, according to international partners, on several conditions: the actual release of political prisoners, an inclusive electoral framework, neutrality of security forces, and respect for public freedoms. Guarantees that the junta, which has in the meantime appointed Ilidio Vieira Té as prime minister and finance minister, has not all fulfilled at this stage.
Another key milestone on the calendar: the country is called to vote on August 30, 2026 on a draft new constitution. Adopted unanimously in January by the National Transitional Council, the legislative body set up by the junta, and backed by a favorable opinion from the Supreme Court, the text provides for a shift from a parliamentary system to a strengthened presidential regime, giving the head of state the power to directly appoint the prime minister and cabinet members. This draft is far from unanimously supported in the country, with several political actors and civil society groups seeing it as an excessive concentration of presidential power, orchestrated by military authorities who are nonetheless not supposed to remain in charge after December.
Ahead of these two major deadlines, the August 30 referendum and then the December 6 double vote, Guinea-Bissau remains a test case for ECOWAS, already grappling for several years with a wave of coups across the region, from Mali to Niger, via Burkina Faso and Guinea. The relatively long timeline of Guinea-Bissau’s transition may reflect, according to some analysts, both a genuine effort at stabilization and a way for the junta to prolong its grip on the country before handing power back to civilians, or not.