In the high political spheres of West Africa, Umaro Sissoco Embaló is decidedly a head of state apart. The Bissau-Guinean participated Thursday August 20 in the ECOWAS videoconference devoted to the coup d’état which took place in Mali two days earlier. And he did not hesitate to take the opposite view of some of his counterparts.
During a first round of speaking by Heads of State, while Mahamadou Issoufou, current President of ECOWAS, recalled the need to condemn the coup and that Alassane Ouattara and Alpha Condé showed their support for Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, whom they still hope to reinstall in the Malian presidency, Sissoco Embaló cast a chill during the virtual assembly.
Indeed, if the President of Guinea-Bissau has declared himself in favor of condemning the coup d’état in Mali, he added that ECOWAS should adopt the same attitude for “all coups d’état”. And to add that, according to him, “the third mandates” were also coups d’etat.
“Son”
If the Nigerian Muhammadu Buhari smiled at this pike, the main stakeholders, Alpha Condé, presumed candidate for the third time for the presidential election in Guinea, and Alassane Ouattara, officially in contention in Côte d’Ivoire, did not appreciate the exit of Bissau-Guinean.
Alpha Condé preferred to remain silent, but Ouattara, himself, expressed his dissatisfaction to his younger brother, whom he then named “son”. Far from being dismantled, Sissoco Embaló replied that he was a counterpart to the Head of State like the others and that there was “no small country”.
The meeting continued without the discomfort completely disappearing.
Relations between Umaro Sissoco Embaló and his Ivorian and Guinean counterparts are appalling.
During the last presidential election in Guinea-Bissau, in December 2019, Condé and Ouattara had indeed supported Embalo’s opponent, Domingos Simões Pereira.
During his last interview with Jeune Afrique, in January 2020, Sissoco Embaló said about Alpha Condé: “He has no respect for me, and I have no respect for him. ”
Young Africa
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