Fully Authoritarian
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HRF classifies Guinea-Bissau as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Guinea-Bissau is a semi-presidential republic. Since gaining independence from Portugal in 1973 through a war of liberation led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Guinea-Bissau has experienced chronic political instability with a series of successful and attempted coups, the deaths of three leaders in office, and a civil war. On November 26, 2025, three days after the elections, the president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló of the Movement for Democratic Alternation – Group of 15 party was arrested as part of a coup d’état. The military took over the country and established control under General Horta Inta-A Na Man before election results could be announced. It is widely believed that this incident was a self-coup or a staged operation orchestrated by Embaló to prevent the announcement of election results that appeared unfavorable to him.
National elections in Guinea-Bissau are often competitive yet frequently undermined by post-vote interference, including military interventions, such that the mainstream opposition rarely has a realistic chance to win. The regime was overthrown in a coup in November 2025. Previously, the National Elections Commission (CNE) declared opposition challenger Embaló the winner of the contested 2019 presidential elections, but ignored injunctions by the country’s highest court to recount the votes. Embaló unilaterally seized power in February 2020 without the Supreme Court’s certification of the results and with a pending legal challenge filed by his opponent. Since seizing power, Embaló’s regime has manipulated the electoral calendar by repeatedly delaying elections, negating the opposition’s victories in the 2019 and 2023 legislative polls, and illegally maintaining power beyond his constitutional term.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The regime seriously and unfairly represses dissenting protests, intimidates journalists, and harasses dissidents. Freedom of expression is severely restricted, with journalists, civil society leaders, and ordinary citizens facing intimidation, harassment, and imprisonment for criticizing the regime. Independent media is subjected to government control, and dissenting voices risk severe reprisals.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The Supreme Court has been captured through leadership changes, forced removals of justices, and rulings that have favored the regime. Courts have repeatedly failed to restrain actions that skewed the electoral process, such as disqualifying major opposition coalitions and candidates, while ignoring or defying rulings that went against regime interests, including orders for detainee releases. In recent years, Guinea-Bissau has experienced the effective dismantling of legislative and oversight mechanisms.
National elections in Guinea-Bissau are often competitive yet frequently undermined by post-vote interference, including military interventions, such that the mainstream opposition rarely has a realistic chance to win. Elections in Guinea-Bissau have become significantly more contentious over time. The 2014 elections were among the most credible and peaceful in the country’s post-independence history, but the 2019 polls declined in credibility when the opposition candidate, Domingos Simoes Pereira, rejected Embaló’s narrow runoff victory and refused to concede. The most recent electoral cycle continued this downward trend through a judicial disqualification of the main opposition party, PAIGC, and its leader, Pereira, on procedural grounds, followed by an alleged self-coup by incumbent Embaló to prevent the opposition from winning. The electoral process has become more manipulated over time through limited political competition, military interference, and the undermining of electoral oversight.
The military has negated electoral results and taken over the government for itself. The regime was overthrown through a coup d’état on November 26, 2025. Three days after the elections in which incumbent Embaló sought a second term, he was arrested by the military. The military took control of the country and installed General Horta Inta-A Na Man as the Transitional President of the Military Command for the Restoration of Order. Some have speculated that this coup was a sham, staged by Embaló’s camp to prevent the declaration of the opposition’s victory. Shortly after the election, unofficial tallies indicated that the leading challenger, Fernando Dias of the Party for Social Renewal (PSR), was narrowly ahead. However, official results were never announced after soldiers stormed the National Electoral Commission and destroyed ballots.
Previously, in 2019, Embaló seized power in controversial circumstances in February 2020 following the disputed 2019 presidential elections. Embaló took office without the Supreme Court’s certification of election results, in defiance of the Court’s ordering of a recount of the vote tally, and a pending legal challenge of the results by his opponent. Since assuming the presidency, Embaló has survived two armed attacks, which the regime qualified as attempted coups. After seizing power, Embaló’s regime has manipulated the electoral calendar by repeatedly delaying presidential and legislative elections. Embaló has illegally maintained power beyond his constitutional terms and negated the opposition’s victories in the 2019 and 2023 legislative polls by dissolving the parliaments elected from those elections.
Embaló’s regime systematically hindered real, mainstream opposition parties’ and candidates’ electoral campaigns. Most notably, the 2025 election excluded the historic main opposition party, PAIGC, and its leader, Pereira. A controversial Supreme Court ruling rejected the party’s candidacy on logistical grounds, claiming it submitted its candidacy documents after the legal deadline had expired. This move was widely viewed as politically-motivated.
The regime has seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The absence of a functional parliament has compromised the mechanism of appointing or renewing commissioners of the National Electoral Commission (CNE). Under Guinean law, the Executive Secretariat is renewed with parliamentary involvement, yet its mandate expired in April 2022 and was never renewed due to Embaló’s repeated dissolution of the National People’s Assembly.
The CNE declared Embaló the winner of the 2019 presidential elections and repeatedly ignored Supreme Court injunctions to recount the votes. Embaló swore himself in as president in February 2020 without the Supreme Court’s certification of the results and with a pending legal challenge filed by his opponent. Further, following the November 2025 general elections, the military stormed the CNE headquarters and destroyed ballots, tally sheets, and servers, effectively nullifying the electoral process and undermining the CNE’s authority.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Under President Embaló, Guinea-Bissau saw significant declines in civic and political freedoms. Journalists faced harassment, foreign media outlets were expelled, dissenters were physically attacked, and major opposition groups such as the PAIGC were repeatedly disrupted. A nationwide ban on protests starting in early 2024 further restricted civil liberties, and the country has experienced increased pressure on dissenting voices following the 2025 military coup.
Embaló’s regime has systematically and seriously intimidated or obstructed the work of independent and dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. Independent journalists and media outlets face regular harassment, intimidation, and violence from the regime. In August 2025, three major Portuguese outlets–RTP Africa, RDP Africa, and the LUSA news agency–were expelled in what many critics believed was an attempt by Embaló’s regime to limit critical coverage prior to the election. No official explanation was provided. In October, commentator Luis Vaz Martins was abducted and beaten by men in police uniforms for critical remarks toward the president. In July 2024, Embaló verbally intimidated journalist Ussumane Mané of Radio Sol Mansi during a press conference after the latter questioned delays in organizing elections. Embaló later attacked the independent press union SINJOTECS, branding it an “illegal organization” after it protested the intimidation of Mané, citing a pattern of hostility and intimidation by Embaló towards journalists.
The situation has become more dire following the coup. Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, ordered the suspension of all media outlets, causing a temporary blackout of private media in late November 2025. Radio stations also faced raids, temporary shutdowns, and signal jams. Journalists reported working in fear, accusing the new military government of forcing “patriotic” and pro-regime news coverage.
The regime has sought to unfairly obstruct the work of opposition parties. The PAIGC has been particularly affected by the regime’s disruptions of its internal activities. In November 2025, after the coup, armed men stormed key opposition sites in Bissau, including the offices of the PAIGC and Social Renewal Party, as well as Fernando Dias’ campaign headquarters. Prior to the coup, PAIGC congresses were hindered multiple times in 2022. In February, the court issued an injunction forbidding the congress, and in March, police raided the PAIGC national headquarters while a meeting was underway, firing tear gas inside the building. Police also used tear gas to disperse supporters of PAIGC leader Pereira, who had returned from exile in March 2021.
In October 2024, police violently dispersed a meeting of the opposition Plataforma Aliança Inclusiva (PAI-Terra Ranka) coalition after Embaló called the gathering “a provocation.” In June 2024, police surrounded the headquarters of the opposition Social Renewal Party in Bissau and attempted to block a meeting of the party.
The regime has also systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. In January 2024, the Interior Minister invoked national security in the wake of a purported attempted December 2023 coup to impose an indefinite ban on all demonstrations. Police systematically cracked down on several peaceful pro-democracy protests, assaulting and detaining demonstrators. For example, in May 2024, police detained nine pro-democracy activists without charge for more than a week after arresting them in the crackdown of a demonstration against growing authoritarianism in the country. Embaló lifted the ban in November 2024, but the same month, the army chief warned against opposition demonstrations.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Under President Embaló, the judiciary underwent significant capture, transforming the Supreme Court into an instrument of executive power. Through the forced removal of the Chief Justice and multiple judges in 2023, rulings that defied the constitutionally required quorum, and the disqualification of the major opposition candidate ahead of the 2025 elections, the court systematically delivered decisions that favored the regime.
Courts frequently and unfairly failed to check the regime’s attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition or make the electoral process significantly skewed in its favor. In February 2025, the Supreme Court’s Acting Chief Justice validated Embaló’s controversial position that his term expires in September 2025, and not February 2025. Additionally, in September 2025, the Supreme Court disqualified the dominant opposition coalition, PAI Terra Ranka, from contesting the election. The court also disqualified the former Prime Minister and Speaker of the National People’s Assembly, Pereira, making the 2025 elections the first since independence to exclude his party, the PAIGC. Pereira was Embaló’s main political rival, and his disqualification directly cleared the path for Embaló’s reelection bid. In November 2024, the Acting Supreme Court Chief Justice rejected the candidacies of the two main opposition coalitions, PAI-Terra Ranka and the Inclusive Patriotic Alliance (API-CG), for parliamentary elections, which the regime indefinitely postponed.
Members of the judicial branch, who rule contrary to regime interests or who are perceived as a threat to the governing authority, have faced retaliation. The regime has publicly pressured top judges. In March 2024, Embaló controversially summoned the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, the Attorney General, and the president of the Military Court to officially instruct the judiciary to try several cases of corruption and alleged coup attempts. In November 2023, the deputy Chief Justice Lima António André orchestrated the illegal ouster of Chief Justice José Pedro Sambu and five other justices of the 11-member bench. In the same month, armed men stormed the Supreme Court building and surrounded the residence of Chief Justice Sambu, forcing him to resign. Since becoming Acting Chief Justice, André has issued illegal rulings consistently favoring Embaló and his regime. It has also undermined legislative checks and effectively endorsed parliamentary dissolution. When Embaló issued a decree dissolving the opposition-controlled National People’s Assembly, the court did not block or review it, thus removing the main check on executive power.
The regime frequently defies court orders in its disfavor. For example, courts repeatedly ordered the release of detainees, including military personnel and civilians, held in connection with the February 2022 attack on the presidential palace, where over 50 suspects had been arrested. The regime ignored these orders, sending an armed contingent of the Military Police to forcibly transfer detainees to a military air base without any court order. In a separate incident, when the opposition-controlled National Guard freed two cabinet ministers being held for corruption-related questioning in November 2023, Embaló’s forces immediately re-arrested them.
Judicial, legislative, or executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold regime officials accountable. The judiciary has not held anyone accountable for a pattern of unsolved attacks on critics of the regime involving armed men in uniform, such as the November 2022 severe beating of lawyer Marcelino Intupé,, the May 2022 shooting of opposition leader Agnelo Regala, the 2021 assassination attempt against human rights defender Luis Vaz Martins, and the February 2022 shooting of the opposition station Radio Capital FM and the house of its political commentator, Rui Landim. The UN Human Rights Committee formally condemned systemic impunity for security forces in 2025.
HRF classifies Guinea-Bissau as ruled by a fully authoritarian regime.
Guinea-Bissau is a semi-presidential republic. Since gaining independence from Portugal in 1973 through a war of liberation led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), Guinea-Bissau has experienced chronic political instability with a series of successful and attempted coups, the deaths of three leaders in office, and a civil war. On November 26, 2025, three days after the elections, the president of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló of the Movement for Democratic Alternation – Group of 15 party was arrested as part of a coup d’état. The military took over the country and established control under General Horta Inta-A Na Man before election results could be announced. It is widely believed that this incident was a self-coup or a staged operation orchestrated by Embaló to prevent the announcement of election results that appeared unfavorable to him.
National elections in Guinea-Bissau are often competitive yet frequently undermined by post-vote interference, including military interventions, such that the mainstream opposition rarely has a realistic chance to win. The regime was overthrown in a coup in November 2025. Previously, the National Elections Commission (CNE) declared opposition challenger Embaló the winner of the contested 2019 presidential elections, but ignored injunctions by the country’s highest court to recount the votes. Embaló unilaterally seized power in February 2020 without the Supreme Court’s certification of the results and with a pending legal challenge filed by his opponent. Since seizing power, Embaló’s regime has manipulated the electoral calendar by repeatedly delaying elections, negating the opposition’s victories in the 2019 and 2023 legislative polls, and illegally maintaining power beyond his constitutional term.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and regular people face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. The regime seriously and unfairly represses dissenting protests, intimidates journalists, and harasses dissidents. Freedom of expression is severely restricted, with journalists, civil society leaders, and ordinary citizens facing intimidation, harassment, and imprisonment for criticizing the regime. Independent media is subjected to government control, and dissenting voices risk severe reprisals.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. The Supreme Court has been captured through leadership changes, forced removals of justices, and rulings that have favored the regime. Courts have repeatedly failed to restrain actions that skewed the electoral process, such as disqualifying major opposition coalitions and candidates, while ignoring or defying rulings that went against regime interests, including orders for detainee releases. In recent years, Guinea-Bissau has experienced the effective dismantling of legislative and oversight mechanisms.
National elections in Guinea-Bissau are often competitive yet frequently undermined by post-vote interference, including military interventions, such that the mainstream opposition rarely has a realistic chance to win. Elections in Guinea-Bissau have become significantly more contentious over time. The 2014 elections were among the most credible and peaceful in the country’s post-independence history, but the 2019 polls declined in credibility when the opposition candidate, Domingos Simoes Pereira, rejected Embaló’s narrow runoff victory and refused to concede. The most recent electoral cycle continued this downward trend through a judicial disqualification of the main opposition party, PAIGC, and its leader, Pereira, on procedural grounds, followed by an alleged self-coup by incumbent Embaló to prevent the opposition from winning. The electoral process has become more manipulated over time through limited political competition, military interference, and the undermining of electoral oversight.
The military has negated electoral results and taken over the government for itself. The regime was overthrown through a coup d’état on November 26, 2025. Three days after the elections in which incumbent Embaló sought a second term, he was arrested by the military. The military took control of the country and installed General Horta Inta-A Na Man as the Transitional President of the Military Command for the Restoration of Order. Some have speculated that this coup was a sham, staged by Embaló’s camp to prevent the declaration of the opposition’s victory. Shortly after the election, unofficial tallies indicated that the leading challenger, Fernando Dias of the Party for Social Renewal (PSR), was narrowly ahead. However, official results were never announced after soldiers stormed the National Electoral Commission and destroyed ballots.
Previously, in 2019, Embaló seized power in controversial circumstances in February 2020 following the disputed 2019 presidential elections. Embaló took office without the Supreme Court’s certification of election results, in defiance of the Court’s ordering of a recount of the vote tally, and a pending legal challenge of the results by his opponent. Since assuming the presidency, Embaló has survived two armed attacks, which the regime qualified as attempted coups. After seizing power, Embaló’s regime has manipulated the electoral calendar by repeatedly delaying presidential and legislative elections. Embaló has illegally maintained power beyond his constitutional terms and negated the opposition’s victories in the 2019 and 2023 legislative polls by dissolving the parliaments elected from those elections.
Embaló’s regime systematically hindered real, mainstream opposition parties’ and candidates’ electoral campaigns. Most notably, the 2025 election excluded the historic main opposition party, PAIGC, and its leader, Pereira. A controversial Supreme Court ruling rejected the party’s candidacy on logistical grounds, claiming it submitted its candidacy documents after the legal deadline had expired. This move was widely viewed as politically-motivated.
The regime has seriously undermined independent electoral oversight. The absence of a functional parliament has compromised the mechanism of appointing or renewing commissioners of the National Electoral Commission (CNE). Under Guinean law, the Executive Secretariat is renewed with parliamentary involvement, yet its mandate expired in April 2022 and was never renewed due to Embaló’s repeated dissolution of the National People’s Assembly.
The CNE declared Embaló the winner of the 2019 presidential elections and repeatedly ignored Supreme Court injunctions to recount the votes. Embaló swore himself in as president in February 2020 without the Supreme Court’s certification of the results and with a pending legal challenge filed by his opponent. Further, following the November 2025 general elections, the military stormed the CNE headquarters and destroyed ballots, tally sheets, and servers, effectively nullifying the electoral process and undermining the CNE’s authority.
Independent media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, and members of the general public face overt and systematic retaliation if they openly criticize or challenge the regime. Under President Embaló, Guinea-Bissau saw significant declines in civic and political freedoms. Journalists faced harassment, foreign media outlets were expelled, dissenters were physically attacked, and major opposition groups such as the PAIGC were repeatedly disrupted. A nationwide ban on protests starting in early 2024 further restricted civil liberties, and the country has experienced increased pressure on dissenting voices following the 2025 military coup.
Embaló’s regime has systematically and seriously intimidated or obstructed the work of independent and dissenting media, political leaders, civil society leaders, organizations, or members of the general public. Independent journalists and media outlets face regular harassment, intimidation, and violence from the regime. In August 2025, three major Portuguese outlets–RTP Africa, RDP Africa, and the LUSA news agency–were expelled in what many critics believed was an attempt by Embaló’s regime to limit critical coverage prior to the election. No official explanation was provided. In October, commentator Luis Vaz Martins was abducted and beaten by men in police uniforms for critical remarks toward the president. In July 2024, Embaló verbally intimidated journalist Ussumane Mané of Radio Sol Mansi during a press conference after the latter questioned delays in organizing elections. Embaló later attacked the independent press union SINJOTECS, branding it an “illegal organization” after it protested the intimidation of Mané, citing a pattern of hostility and intimidation by Embaló towards journalists.
The situation has become more dire following the coup. Denis N’Canha, head of the presidential military office, ordered the suspension of all media outlets, causing a temporary blackout of private media in late November 2025. Radio stations also faced raids, temporary shutdowns, and signal jams. Journalists reported working in fear, accusing the new military government of forcing “patriotic” and pro-regime news coverage.
The regime has sought to unfairly obstruct the work of opposition parties. The PAIGC has been particularly affected by the regime’s disruptions of its internal activities. In November 2025, after the coup, armed men stormed key opposition sites in Bissau, including the offices of the PAIGC and Social Renewal Party, as well as Fernando Dias’ campaign headquarters. Prior to the coup, PAIGC congresses were hindered multiple times in 2022. In February, the court issued an injunction forbidding the congress, and in March, police raided the PAIGC national headquarters while a meeting was underway, firing tear gas inside the building. Police also used tear gas to disperse supporters of PAIGC leader Pereira, who had returned from exile in March 2021.
In October 2024, police violently dispersed a meeting of the opposition Plataforma Aliança Inclusiva (PAI-Terra Ranka) coalition after Embaló called the gathering “a provocation.” In June 2024, police surrounded the headquarters of the opposition Social Renewal Party in Bissau and attempted to block a meeting of the party.
The regime has also systematically, seriously, and unfairly repressed protests or gatherings. In January 2024, the Interior Minister invoked national security in the wake of a purported attempted December 2023 coup to impose an indefinite ban on all demonstrations. Police systematically cracked down on several peaceful pro-democracy protests, assaulting and detaining demonstrators. For example, in May 2024, police detained nine pro-democracy activists without charge for more than a week after arresting them in the crackdown of a demonstration against growing authoritarianism in the country. Embaló lifted the ban in November 2024, but the same month, the army chief warned against opposition demonstrations.
Institutions largely fail to serve as independent checks on the regime. Under President Embaló, the judiciary underwent significant capture, transforming the Supreme Court into an instrument of executive power. Through the forced removal of the Chief Justice and multiple judges in 2023, rulings that defied the constitutionally required quorum, and the disqualification of the major opposition candidate ahead of the 2025 elections, the court systematically delivered decisions that favored the regime.
Courts frequently and unfairly failed to check the regime’s attempts to significantly undermine electoral competition or make the electoral process significantly skewed in its favor. In February 2025, the Supreme Court’s Acting Chief Justice validated Embaló’s controversial position that his term expires in September 2025, and not February 2025. Additionally, in September 2025, the Supreme Court disqualified the dominant opposition coalition, PAI Terra Ranka, from contesting the election. The court also disqualified the former Prime Minister and Speaker of the National People’s Assembly, Pereira, making the 2025 elections the first since independence to exclude his party, the PAIGC. Pereira was Embaló’s main political rival, and his disqualification directly cleared the path for Embaló’s reelection bid. In November 2024, the Acting Supreme Court Chief Justice rejected the candidacies of the two main opposition coalitions, PAI-Terra Ranka and the Inclusive Patriotic Alliance (API-CG), for parliamentary elections, which the regime indefinitely postponed.
Members of the judicial branch, who rule contrary to regime interests or who are perceived as a threat to the governing authority, have faced retaliation. The regime has publicly pressured top judges. In March 2024, Embaló controversially summoned the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, the Attorney General, and the president of the Military Court to officially instruct the judiciary to try several cases of corruption and alleged coup attempts. In November 2023, the deputy Chief Justice Lima António André orchestrated the illegal ouster of Chief Justice José Pedro Sambu and five other justices of the 11-member bench. In the same month, armed men stormed the Supreme Court building and surrounded the residence of Chief Justice Sambu, forcing him to resign. Since becoming Acting Chief Justice, André has issued illegal rulings consistently favoring Embaló and his regime. It has also undermined legislative checks and effectively endorsed parliamentary dissolution. When Embaló issued a decree dissolving the opposition-controlled National People’s Assembly, the court did not block or review it, thus removing the main check on executive power.
The regime frequently defies court orders in its disfavor. For example, courts repeatedly ordered the release of detainees, including military personnel and civilians, held in connection with the February 2022 attack on the presidential palace, where over 50 suspects had been arrested. The regime ignored these orders, sending an armed contingent of the Military Police to forcibly transfer detainees to a military air base without any court order. In a separate incident, when the opposition-controlled National Guard freed two cabinet ministers being held for corruption-related questioning in November 2023, Embaló’s forces immediately re-arrested them.
Judicial, legislative, or executive institutions have systematically, frequently, and unfairly failed to hold regime officials accountable. The judiciary has not held anyone accountable for a pattern of unsolved attacks on critics of the regime involving armed men in uniform, such as the November 2022 severe beating of lawyer Marcelino Intupé,, the May 2022 shooting of opposition leader Agnelo Regala, the 2021 assassination attempt against human rights defender Luis Vaz Martins, and the February 2022 shooting of the opposition station Radio Capital FM and the house of its political commentator, Rui Landim. The UN Human Rights Committee formally condemned systemic impunity for security forces in 2025.
