Guinea-Bissau's President Embalo: candidate tipped for second term

Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embalo is confident he will easily win another term as he criss-crosses the country with a signature red and white keffiyeh wrapped around his head, meeting enthusiastic supporters ahead of Sunday's vote.

Embalo is only the second leader since the introduction of a multiparty system in the west African country to see out his term without being ousted or killed.

However, his time in office has not been smooth sailing with a postponed election, dissolved parliament and several coup attempts.

With Guinea-Bissau's main opposition candidate, Domingos Simoes Pereira, and his historic PAIGC party barred from the race due to late candidacy submissions, Embalo is favoured to win.

Nicknamed "the general" by supporters even though he left the army in the 1990s, the 53-year-old is a political scientist, specialising in defence and geostrategic affairs.

In recent weeks, Embalo has traversed Guinea-Bissau at the head of a large motorcade, taking jabs at the other 11 presidential candidates and galvanising crowds of supporters.

Embalo promised he would only stand for one term but earlier this year announced another tilt at the top job "for the good of this country".

A prime minister from 2016 to 2018 under president Jose Mario Vaz, Embalo won in the second round of voting in December 2019 after a highly contested election.

He declared himself president -- as did his rival Pereira, also an ex-prime minister, who heads the PAIGC party that led the former Portuguese colony to independence in 1974.

Embalo's victory was confirmed by the Supreme Court and finally recognised by the West African regional bloc ECOWAS after a four-month impasse.

Since then, Embalo says there have been several coup attempts against him, including a bid "to subvert the constitutional order" in October on the eve of the start of campaigning.

Over four decades, Guinea-Bissau has seen four coups and multiple attempted coups.

'Adept' at division

In December 2023 Embalo dissolved the opposition-dominated parliament three days after clashes which authorities said were due to coup plotters.

The move was fiercely condemned by Pereira -- then the parliament speaker -- as a constitutional coup.

Legislative elections due last November were postponed and were set, together with the presidential ballot, for Sunday.

The opposition PAI-Terra Ranka coalition, also led by Pereira and barred from Sunday's vote, says Embalo's mandate ran out on February 27, five years to the day after he was sworn in.

Embalo came to power portraying himself as an outsider and "has shown himself to be very adept at setting the different parties in Guinea-Bissau against each other", Pedro Seabra, deputy director of the Centre for International Studies in Lisbon, said.

Father, football fan

Embalo is deputy head of the Madem G-15 movement, which he set up with dissident members of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) that dominated politics in the country until 2019.

A father of three, Embalo, a Muslim from the ethnic Fulani community, is married to a Christian and speaks five languages.

Born in the capital, he studied social and political science in Spain and Portugal and is a keen football fan, supporting the Belgian first division side, Standard Liege.