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Senegalese authorities have announced that Guinea-Bissau’s deposed president Oumaro Sissoko Embalo has arrived in neighboring Senegal after being freed this week by the forces that overthrew his government.
The move comes after West African regional grouping Economic Community of West African States negotiated to secure his transfer amid rising tensions in Guinea-Bissau.
Senegal’s foreign ministry said in a statement that Embalo landed in the country “safe and sound” on a military charter flight on Thursday night.
Guinea-Bissau’s military has sworn in a new transitional leader, General Horta Ntam, who will rule the coup-prone country for a year.
Wednesday’s coup came a day before authorities announced provisional results from presidential and parliamentary elections.
The military has suspended the electoral process and prevented the results from being announced.
It said the move was to thwart a plot by unnamed politicians “backed by a known drug lord” to destabilize the country and imposed a nighttime curfew.
The coup-prone country, sandwiched between Senegal and Guinea, is known as a center for drug trafficking and its military has been influential since independence from Portugal in 1974.
Embalo and his closest rival Fernando DÃaz both won Sunday’s presidential election.
DÃaz is backed by former Prime Minister Domingos Pereira, who has been disqualified from running.
Government sources earlier told the BBC that Dias, Pereira and Interior Minister Boche Kander were also detained.
The junta banned public protests and “all acts that interfere with the peace and stability of the country.”
Tensions remained high in the capital Bissau on Thursday, with most shops and markets closed and soldiers patrolling the streets, AFP reported.
Earlier in the day, Guinea-Bissau’s army chief of staff, General Ntame, was appointed as the country’s new leader for a one-year term.
Gen. Ntam said in a speech that the military had acted “to stop actions aimed at threatening our democracy.”
Shortly after being sworn in, the military reopened land, air and sea borders that had been closed when the coup was announced.
Some civil society groups in Guinea-Bissau have accused Embalo of planning a “mock coup” against him with the help of the military, saying it was a ruse to prevent the election results from being announced in case he failed.
Embalo’s main challenger DÃaz made similar claims, calling it an “organized coup.”
He told AFP he considered himself the elected president of Guinea-Bissau and believed he had won around 52% of the vote.
Embalo has yet to respond to the accusations.
The 53-year-old leader said he had dodged several coups during his time in office. However, his critics have previously accused him of fabricating the crisis to suppress dissent.
ECOWAS leaders have suspended Guinea-Bissau from all decision-making bodies until constitutional order is restored. In a statement, the group ordered the troops to return to their barracks, saying their actions were “a serious violation of Guinea-Bissau’s constitutional order.”
The African Union (AU) also condemned the coup and called for respect for the constitutional order.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he was “deeply concerned” about the situation in Guinea-Bissau and called for “the immediate and unconditional restoration of constitutional order.”
Guinea-Bissau has seen at least nine coups or attempted coups in the past five years.
Additional reporting by Wycliffe Muia, Nicolas Negoce and Natasha Booty
