Guinea-Bissau’s electoral commission has said it can no longer complete the November 23 presidential election after armed men seized ballots, tally sheets and computers from its offices, and destroyed the servers storing the results.
Army officers seized power on November 26, one day before the commission was due to announce provisional results from the tightly contested vote. Several buildings, including the electoral commission headquarters, came under attack during the takeover.
“We do not have the material and logistic conditions to follow through with the electoral process,” Idrissa Djalo, a senior electoral commission official, said in a statement on Tuesday.
“They confiscated the computers of all 45 staff members who were at the commission that day,” he said, adding that tally sheets from all regions had been seized and the server where the results were stored had been destroyed.
“It is impossible to complete the electoral process without the tally sheets from the regions,” Djalo said.
Major-General Horta Inta-A was sworn in as the new transitional president on November 27, halting the election process. The military has since tightened restrictions, banning demonstrations and strikes.
Inta-A has promised a one-year transitional period and on Saturday appointed a 28-member cabinet made up largely of figures aligned with the deposed president.
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