Guinea-Bissau Interim Leader Vows Drug, Graft Crackdown

Bloomberg

Watch Guinea-Bissau Interim Leader Vows Drug, Graft Crackdown - Bloomberg on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Guinea-Bissau's new interim military leader is vowing a crackdown on drug trafficking and corruption after taking power.

00:07General Horta Antam was sworn in a day after soldiers arrested the president and ordered last weekend's election results to be suspended.

00:15For more, let's bring in Bloomberg's Ondira Oganga, who joins us now with the latest.

00:18Ondira, what more do we know?

00:23Good morning, Tom. A lot has escalated in Guinea-Bissau in the last 48 hours.

00:27First, it started with gunfire. The presidential palace was seized.

00:31The president, Sissoko Mbala, was taken into custody.

00:34And quickly, we saw this military general, Horta Anta, being sworn into power.

00:39And if you look at that swearing ceremony, he was flunked by high-ranking military officials,

00:43almost as if it's a stamp on approval on this coup that has currently happened in Guinea-Bissau.

00:48During his swearing-in speech, he made a couple of declarations.

00:51One, he said there was enough evidence to justify this coup that they carried out.

00:56And he said, like you mentioned, he will fight drug trafficking.

00:59He's going to tackle corruption.

01:01But most importantly, he asked for the support and cooperation from the people of Guinea.

01:06In the last couple of hours, there have been new developments.

01:08We have confirmed that the deposed president has now safely landed in Senegal.

01:14They've also closed the borders of the country.

01:16And they've imposed an overnight curfew.

01:18And unlike previous coups that we've seen in different countries in the western Sahel,

01:22this one was very quiet.

01:24There's a lot of confusion.

01:25We haven't seen the usual celebration.

01:27And it's for a couple of reasons.

01:28Outside of the political instability is the drug trafficking that is a pain point,

01:32not only for the government, but also for the people.

01:35This is a country that sits right between Latin America, the drug trafficking gangs,

01:38and also drug users in Europe.

01:41It's such a notorious route that it has been labeled a narco state.

01:44And yet again, the people of Guinea-Bissau, who depend on selling cash net and fishing,

01:48are seeing power exchanging hands without the decision that they made in the ballot being taken into account.

01:56Well, on that point then, on Dero, how is this coup playing out in the region,

02:01particularly amid concerns about back steps when it comes to democracy?

02:09Guinea-Bissau is a very interesting country.

02:11It's small, 2.5 million people, 2.5 billion economy, but big problems.

02:16And if we talk about coups, they have experienced some of the most coups in the region,

02:21close to 17 coups they've experienced a civil war.

02:23Actually, only one elected president has completed their term.

02:27Last year, in October of 2024, there was an attempted coup.

02:30In February of 2025, there was an attempted coup.

02:33And now with this successful coup, it makes it five successfully completed coups in Guinea-Bissau.

02:38And it's not just that country.

02:40It's across the Western Sahel.

02:42And, you know, the interim military government says they'll only be in office for a year.

02:46But that's not the truth.

02:47If you look at what has happened in the region, you look at Guinea, you look at Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso,

02:52that's not what has happened.

02:54In Guinea, when Domboye came into power, he swore that he's only a transitional leader.

02:59They'll transition back to a civilian government.

03:01Four years later, he's still in power.

03:03He tweaked the constitution.

03:04And now he could be in power for the next 14 years.

03:07The same thing has happened in Chad.

03:09And then come regional bodies like ECOWAS, who have very little say in this,

03:14because when they threatened to invade Niger after a military coup,

03:18which saw this country's breakaway, form alliance of the Sahel,

03:21there are also problems if you look at democracy.

03:24Ivory Kosas is a fourth-term president.

03:26Cameroon is now staring at a lifetime president who might likely die in power.

03:30And so these military leaders are emboldened by the fact that there's no pushback

03:34and there's no repercussion.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended