Leaders of last week's coup in Guinea-Bissau have closed the country's air and sea borders amid rising pressure on them to give up power
Guinea-Bissau Elections
- Guinea-Bissau wins independence from Portugal in 1974.
- Luis Cabral becomes president in 1974 and is ousted in a 1980 coup led by armed forces chief Joao Bernardo Vieira.
- Vieira clings to power despite alleged coup attempts and is elected president in 1994 multi-party polls.
- Guinea-Bissau plunges into a bloody civil war in 1998 after an army uprising.
- Military junta ousts Vieira in 1999; opposition leader Kumba Yala is elected president in 2000.
- President Yala is ousted in bloody military coup in 2003; Businessman Henrique Rosa is sworn in as president.
- Joao Bernardo Vieira wins 2005 presidential vote and is killed by soldiers in the presidential palace in 2009.
- Malam Bacai Sanha is elected president and while hospitalized in 2011 a military struggle and attempted coup take place.
- President Sanha dies in January 2012 after a long illness; National Assembly Speaker Raimundo Pereira becomes acting president.
ECOWAS external relations director Abdel-Fatau Musah told VOA English to Africa that no one is going to allow a military to take over power in the region.
"The military there are bent on keeping that country as a failed state, for their interest and other things," he said. "And as long as that situation continues in Guinea-Bissau, the peace and security environment in the region - and indeed international security - is also endangered."
Guinea-Bissau has endured numerous coups and coup attempts over the past 30 years and has become a transit point for international drug traffickers.
Musah said ECOWAS has budgeted $63 million for a program to reform Guinea-Bissau's defense and security sector, including restructuring and downsizing what he called the "ill-disciplined" military.
Guinea-Bissau's political parties have been in tense negotiations for several days with the coup leaders. A spokesman for the parties, Fernando Vaz, has said there will be a solution by Monday.
A runoff election was planned at the end of this month to replace the late president Malam Bacai Sanha, who died in January after a long illness.
Former prime minister Carlos Gomes Junior, a member of the ruling party, was to face Kumba Yala, a former president who has had close ties to the military. The military junta seized Gomes and interim president Raimundo Pereira last Thursday at their homes. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
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Musah said Guinea-Bissau needs a functional government without military interference to resolve all of the country's problems.
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