General Horta Nta Na Man sworn in as Guinea-Bissau’s transitional president after coup, army says

Guinea-Bissau’s military installed General Horta Nta Na Man as transitional president on Thursday, an army statement said, a day after soldiers toppled President Umaro Sissoco Embalo in a swift power grab that followed a disputed election.

The self-styled "High Military Command for the Restoration of Order" announced in a televised statement on Wednesday that they had ousted Embalo, in the latest episode of unrest in the coup-prone country. Radio France Internationale reported that Nta would be president for a transitional period lasting one year.

Wednesday's army takeover came one day before provisional results had been expected to be announced in the race between Embalo and Fernando Dias, a 47-year-old political newcomer who had emerged as Embalo's top challenger to run the West African state, which is a hub for cocaine trafficking.

Dias accused Embalo in a video statement of staging a "false coup attempt" to derail the election because he feared he would lose.

In a statement to Reuters on Thursday, the coalition backing Dias demanded that authorities be allowed to release results from Sunday's presidential election.

The coalition also called for the release of former Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira, defeated by Embalo in the 2019 election. He was detained on Wednesday, according to relatives and security sources.

Election observers from the African Union and West African regional bloc ECOWAS, in a joint statement on Wednesday night expressing "deep concern" over the coup announcement, said officials in charge of the electoral process had been arrested and called for their immediate release.

Nigerian former President Goodluck Jonathan, who had been observing the vote as part of the West African Elders Forum, was not reachable on Thursday, Joel Ahofodji, an ECOWAS spokesperson, told Reuters.

Edwin Snowe, a senator from Liberia who had been among a group of parliamentary observers, told Reuters he left the country on Tuesday and had been unable since Wednesday to reach fellow observers who were still there.