Portuguese-speaking Guinea-Bissau — gripped for months by tensions over claims the president’s mandate has expired — is one of the most unstable and putsch-prone countries in the world.
The poor west African nation’s chronic instability has made it vulnerable to corruption and South American drug cartels.
The former Portuguese colony close to the tip of Africa’s western bulge fought an 11-year armed struggle for independence led by the African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde (PAIGC), its longtime ruling party.
Since then, it has been through four successful coups — the last in 2012 — as well as 17 attempted, plotted or alleged putsches.
The constant instability and conflict have hobbled its development.
The November 2019 presidential election was followed by a political crisis with two rivals claiming to be head of state. That only ended in April 2020 when the West African regional bloc, ECOWAS, recognised the victory of Umaro Sissoco Embalo.
A reserve brigadier general, he previously served as prime minister under his predecessor Jose Mario Vaz, the first head of state since multiparty elections in 1994 not to have been killed or overthrown.
In October 2021, the government denied a new coup was afoot.
Such is the country’s instability, Vaz had seven prime ministers during his five years in office.
Sandwiched between Senegal and Guinea, tropical Guinea-Bissau is slightly larger than Belgium and includes the Bijagos or Bissagos archipelago of some 88 islands scattered along its Atlantic coast.
Its population of around 2.2 million in 2023, according to World Bank figures, includes a large range of ethnic groups, languages and religions.
Guinea-Bissau is ranked 179th out of 193 on the UN’s Human Development Index.
About a quarter of its citizens were living on less than $1.90 a day, according to the world lender’s latest figures.
Largely as a result of poor healthcare services, average life expectancy is 60 years.
Poverty and chaotic administration have made the country a fertile ground for Latin American drug lords trafficking cocaine to Europe.
Last year, the son of a former Guinea-Bissauan president, Malam Bacai Sanha Jr, was sentenced to jail in the United States for involvement in a transnational heroin trafficking conspiracy.
According to US justice, he planned to use the proceeds to finance a coup in the African country that would lead to his eventual presidency and establishment of a “drugs regime”.
Five Latin Americans were arrested in the capital Bissau in September with 2.6 tonnes of cocaine in an aircraft coming from Venezuela.
In August 2021, Embalo refused to extradite an ex-head of the army and former coup leader, Antonio Indjai, who the United States claims handled tonnes of cocaine for the Colombian rebel group FARC.
Guinea-Bissau was ranked 158th out of 180 countries by Transparency International in 2024 for perceived levels of corruption.
Agriculture is the main economic driver and the country is one of the biggest cashew nut producers in the world.
The economy has expanded robustly in recent years — economic growth was 4.3 percent in 2023, according to the African Development Bank, which forecasts 5.2-percent growth this year.