The Attorney General of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau (PGR) announced on Friday that he had issued an international arrest warrant against Domingos Simões Pereira, leader of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), who has been in Portugal for several months.
“The public prosecutor reports that he has already issued an international arrest warrant against the citizen Domingos Simões Pereira, within the framework of a criminal procedure which follows the legal procedures of this judicial institution which holds the criminal action”, reads -on in the press release of the PGR, quoted by the Lusa agency.
Speaking to PÚBLICO, Domingos Simões Pereira, however, affirms that he “does not know of any action” brought against him and assumes that he learned of the case through “the media and social networks”.
“If we are talking about an arrest warrant, I think it is mandatory that there is a crime that I have committed and that the Guinean state has assessed it as being of such importance that it justifies my quick presentation to the country in order to respond to it, ”he said. the leader of the PAIGC.
“The situation is very serious, given that I am the leader of a political party – in fact the largest political party -, which has its headquarters in the central square of the country and, therefore, I find it difficult to believe someone is looking for me and you are not. you can contact me, ”he added.
Simões Pereira contested the presidential elections at the end of last year with the current president, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, who took power without waiting for the outcome of the electoral dispute that took place before the Supreme Court of Justice.
To the PUBLIC, the leader of the PAIGC affirms, even so, that “to be true”, the issuance of the arrest warrant is the confirmation of the “illegitimate position” of Embaló and of the political instrumentalisation of Justice in Guinea. -Bissau.
This corresponds to the posture of this so-called government and the new authorities, who know that they do not represent any legitimacy, that they are aware that they have seized power by force and that they think it is by the force that they must continue to act ”, accuses Domingos Simões Pereira.
Shortly after taking office in February, the Guinean president sacked the government led by Aristides Gomes of the PAIGC.
He appointed another executive, headed by Nuno Gomes Nabiam, head of the United People’s Assembly – Democratic Party of Guinea-Bissau (APU-PDGB), which includes the Movement for Democratic Alternation (Madem-G15), the Party social renewal and elements of the movements they have supported since Embaló.
Aristides Gomes is also the target of several lawsuits, which his lawyers qualify as “political persecution”.
Early elections?
In addition to these legal episodes involving high-ranking PAIGC figures, Guinea-Bissau also made the headlines on Thursday due to threats of dissolution of Parliament by Umaro Sissoco Embaló.
The stake, according to the President of the Republic, is the fact that the deputies of the PAIGC, who do not recognize the government of Nabiam, were absent from the discussion and the vote of the state budget for 2021 at the People’s Assembly. national – it was approved by favorable votes. of 54 deputies and no votes against.
After meeting the Council of State, the parties with parliamentary representation and the President of the Assembly of the Republic and Vice-President of the PAIGC, Cipriano Cassamá, this Thursday, Embaló was however informed that no one wanted legislative elections anticipated to Parents.
The dissolution of the National Assembly is the responsibility of the president, according to the Guinean Constitution, but what should be an exceptional measure, used only in the event of serious institutional crisis, has proved to be a weapon of political launching with the former president José Mário Vaz, mainly in the standoff with Domingos Simões Pereira. Umaro Sissoco Embaló seems to follow the same vein.