Guinea-Bissau political opponent Fernando Dias da Costa, who claims to have won the presidential elections interrupted by a coup d'état, praised on Monday, August 31, the citizens for the courage, maturity, and civic consciousness demonstrated in the face of the boycott of Sunday's constitutional referendum. In a video message, the political opponent emphasized that the strong abstention recorded constitutes an unequivocal political message that citizens are not willing to legitimize a constitutional process conducted without the necessary national consensus.
The spokesperson for Guinea-Bissau's National Election Commission (CNE), Idriça Djaló, announced on Sunday a participation rate above 50% of voters in the constitutional referendum proposed by the military. However, according to the opposition and civil society organizations, which had called for a boycott of the vote, the process resulted in strong abstention.
Fernando Dias da Costa rejected maneuvers aimed at imposing on Guineans a new Constitution according to the will of his former opponent, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, deposed in the coup d'état of November 26 last year. The opponent considered that the absence of popular participation does not represent indifference to the country's future, but rather a conscious stance against maneuvers aimed at imposing a Constitution designed outside of genuine national dialogue.
Guinea-Bissau's military carried out a coup d'état on November 26, one day before the publication of legislative and presidential election results, removed from power the then-elected President Umaro Sissoco Embaló, and pushed through a new Constitution that reinforces the powers of the head of state. The opposition considered it a ceremonial coup d'état to allow Sissoco Embaló to return to power through new presidential and legislative elections scheduled by the military for December 6.
