BISSAU (Reuters) – The 15-state ECOWAS group of West
African states backed Guinea-Bissau’s parliament speaker on Friday to head the transition back to
civilian rule after an April 12 coup, a decision immediately rejected within the country’s main
political party.
neighbours back parliament chief for president
The tiny coastal state of
Guinea-Bissau has long been a major trafficking hub for Latin American cocaine into Europe, with key
army leaders suspected by the United States and others of being implicated in the narcotics
trade.
An ECOWAS delegation to the capital Bissau issued a statement declaring that, according
to the constitution, parliament speaker Manuel Sherifo Nhamadjo should assume the function of interim
president.
However an official for the PAIGC party of former prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior,
favourite to win a presidential run-off that had been scheduled to take place days after the coup, said
it would not recognise Nhamadjo.
“The PAIGC … awaits the view of the U.N. Security Council on
this matter,” PAIGC Secretary-General Augusto Olivaz told reporters after the ECOWAS statement, issued
in the early hours of the morning after 10 hours of closed-door talks.
However it was not clear
whether Olivaz’s stance represented that of the broader PAIGC party, many of whose members have said
they are favourable to Nhamadjo. Gomes Junior, who was initially held by coup leaders, is believed to
be in Ivory Coast.
The coup came after weeks of tensions between the Bissau military and an
Angolan force of several hundred troops sent to the country to help reform the army, which has
repeatedly interfered in politics since 1974’s independence from Portugal.
Angola has said it
plans to pull the force out. ECOWAS has subsequently said it could deploy its own military advisers to
take over the baton, but so far neither a clear date for the Angolan pull-out nor ECOWAS entry has been
set and the idea of a joint ECOWAS-Angola force has been mooted.
ECOWAS has said it believed
Army Chief of Staff General Antonio Indjai was the leader of the shadowy self-styled Military Command
that seized power in the coup. However the junta said Indjai had been deposed during the coup.