ECOWAS HOLDS EMERGENCY SUMMIT ON POLITICAL SITUATION IN GUINEA-BISSAU

ECOWAS NIGER

[Africa News\Guinea-Bissau]
The ECOWAS Heads of states are meeting, in Niger, to ensure that they accompany Guinea Bissau in the holding of peaceful, credible and transparent elections on the 24th of November 2019 in line with ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance of 2001.
Photo: ECOWAS

The Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have convened an Extraordinary Summit on the political situation in Guinea Bissau on Friday, 8th November 2019, in Niamey, Niger.

The Summit will consider reports from a High Level Ministerial Committee, headed by H.E. Kalla Ankourao, Chair of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Cooperation, African Integration and Nigeriens Abroad. The Ministerial Committee was in Bissau on the 3rd of November 2019 to evaluate the political situation and the implementation of the decisions of the 55th Summit of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government taken in Abuja, Nigeria on the 29th of June 2019.

The Heads of states are meeting to ensure that they accompany Guinea Bissau in the holding of peaceful, credible and transparent elections on the 24th of November 2019 in line with ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance of 2001.

Last week, the political turmoil in Guinea Bissau was made worse when President Jose Mario Vaz fired the country’s Prime Minister Aristide Gomes. Vaz then replaced him with Faustino Fudut Imbali, who served from 2000-2003 as prime minister representing the Manifest Party of the People. Vaz was elected in 2014, but soon fell out with members of his PAIGC Party (African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) for firing the then prime minister in 2015. Prime Minister Gomes has refused to step down saying Vaz’s presidential term ended in June.

The bitter power struggle in Guinea Bissau is occurring as the November 24 election nears.

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