Ten months after a coup, navy leaders say the referendum is designed to stabilise future civilian governments.
Revealed On 30 Aug 2026
Poll counting is below method in a referendum in Guinea-Bissau that would considerably increase the presidency’s energy.
Residents of the West African nation took to the polls on Sunday to vote on a brand new structure that might reform the country’s political system forward of elections later this yr.
Turnout “exceeded” 55 % and the ballot passed off “with none incidents that might name into query the credibility of the vote”, Idrissa Djalo, government secretary of the Nationwide Electoral Fee, advised a information briefing on Sunday.
Outcomes are anticipated on Tuesday.
The referendum comes lower than 10 months after the military seized power in a coup.
The navy authorities says it seeks to stabilise establishments earlier than presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for December 6, designed at hand energy again to a civilian authorities.
The brand new structure, which residents have been requested to approve on Sunday, would swap Guinea-Bissau’s political system from a parliamentary to a presidential one.
It will abandon the system by which prime ministers got here from the parliamentary majority, an strategy that has led to uncomfortable power-sharing.
The brand new system would additionally permit the pinnacle of state to nominate and dismiss the prime minister and members of the federal government, and to dissolve parliament.
On Sunday, voters answered “sure” or “no” to the query: “Do you agree with the entry into drive of the brand new structure authorized by the Nationwide Transitional Council?”
“What we would like after this referendum is to permit whoever wins the elections to see out their mandate with out hindrance,” navy chief and transitional President Normal Horta Inta-A Na Man mentioned.
Below the transitional constitution he upholds, Inta-A Na Man is barred from working in elections.
The referendum follows years of political instability. Within the November 2025 presidential election, both candidates declared victory and accused one another of electoral interference. The coup happened at some point after.
