Umaro Sissoco Embaló's five-year term as president officially expired on February 28, 2025. Technically, he is no longer Guinea-Bissau's leader, but he has not stepped down. Domingos Simões Pereira, leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), insists Embaló must step down immediately.

Pereira leads a coalition that actually won the last parliamentary elections in 2023 with an absolute majority. But since then, Embaló has systematically prevented Pereira from forming a government.

The four-year term of the parliament has also expired, so Pereira wants new presidential and parliamentary elections "within 90 days and not only on November 30, as the president has suggested." 

Pereira adds: "The constitution requires this. Before that, the parliament, which the president dissolved in December 2023, must be urgently reconvened."

According to Pereira, this parliament must appoint the members of the National Election Commission and elect the president of the Constitutional Court, whose mandates have also expired. Most other political parties in the country, legal experts, and civil society representatives in Guinea-Bissau share this view.

Embaló has ruled the West African country by decree for over a year,and seems intent on stopping Domingos Simões Pereira, who is accused of corruption, from ever being appointed prime minister.

Now it seems Embaló intends to remain president for the foreseeable future, and stop other political entities other than himself and his hand-picked cabinet from having any decision-making power. Embaló, a former brigadier general, served as Guinea-Bissau's prime minister between 2016 and 2018. Originally a member of the PAIGC, he joined the MADEM G15 group, a breakaway faction.

While the opposition is in uproar, there is increasing apathy from citizens buckling under a severe economic crisis. 

Nuno Nabiam, a former prime minister and leader of the second-largest opposition party, API, tells DW protest action is inevitable until constitutional order is restored.

But Umaro Sissoco Embaló dismissed the opposition as "incompetent", before paying a friendly visit to Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

At home, Interior Minister Botche Candé - one of Embaló's closest allies - threatened to "nip any demonstration in the bud." The Secretary of State for Public Order, José Carlos Macedo Monteiro, said security forces would not tolerate any action aimed at "disturbing public order in the country."

"The political situation in the country is very tense. The streets of Bissau are filled with soldiers, and the population is in panic and afraid of what might happen in the near future," says Bubacar Turé, the chairman of Guinea-Bissau's Human Rights League.

For now, there are no large demonstrations. The visible presence of security forces and the start of Ramadan - which affects over half of Guinea Bissau's population - has discouraged protests, according to Turé.

Larger protests have so far been limited to the Bissau-Guinean expatriate communities, for instance in Portugal's capital, Lisbon.

Demonstrators in downtown Lisbon shouted: "Sissoco, out! Sissoco, out! Long live democracy!" 

One protester told DW: "We demand respect for the constitution in our homeland, the Republic of Guinea-Bissau. The mandate of Umaro Sissoco Embaló has ended. We are here to demand respect for the law."

"We know the president is in Russia today. No one knows what he is doing there. Putin has apparently declared that Sissoco should remain in office. What Putin says has no bearing on our constitution!" another demonstrator told DW.

Sissoco Embaló has curated an international reputation over the past five years. He is said to have made more than 300 trips abroad, including 200 flights on a private jet for non-state visits, says Fransual Dias from the opposition party PRS.

Pedro Jandim, a representative of Domingos Simões Pereira's PAIGC party in Germany, told DW:  "We have a president who doesn't care about the problems in his own country because he is constantly abroad. Our schools don't work, our hospitals don't work. Roads are not being built. Nothing works in Guinea-Bissau."

Decisive change is not in sight. A high-level ECOWAS delegation, led by Nigerian diplomat Bagudu Hirse, traveled to Bissau when Embaló's mandate expired. But the ECOWAS delegation soon left, accusing Embaló of threatening to expel the mediation mission before he went to Russia. This has diminished hopes that a multilateral initiative could solve the political crisis. 

"ECOWAS is very weak right now. It cannot enforce its own rules," says lawyer and chairman of the Bissau-Guinean Human Rights League, Bubacar Turé. 

Braima Darame contributed to this article.

Edited by Cai Nebe