BISSAU (Reuters) -Sustained gunfire broke out near Guinea-Bissau’s election commission headquarters on Wednesday, a day before provisional results from a tense presidential vote were due to be announced, witnesses said.
The coup-prone West African country held presidential and legislative elections on Sunday. The race pits incumbent President Umaro Sissoco Embalo against top challenger Fernando Dias, and both sides claimed victory in the first round earlier this week.
It was not immediately clear who was involved in the shooting, which was witnessed by a Reuters journalist and two other residents.
A spokesperson for Embalo, Antonio Yaya Seidy, told Reuters that unidentified gunmen attacked the election commission to prevent an announcement of the vote results.
He said the men were affiliated with Dias, without providing evidence. A spokesperson for Dias did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the witnesses said residents were running away from the scene as gunfire continued near the election commission building around 1300 GMT.
A driver in Bissau who asked not to be identified by name said there was also gunfire at the interior ministry and the presidential palace, which are nearby.
“People are running everywhere,” he said.
The small coastal nation between Senegal and Guinea saw at least nine coups between 1974, when it gained independence from Portugal, and 2020, when Embalo took office.
Embalo says he has survived another three coup attempts since then, though his opponents have accused him of manufacturing crises as an excuse for crackdowns – charges he dismisses.
Embalo was seeking to become the first president in three decades to win a second consecutive term in Guinea-Bissau.
The election was the first to go ahead without the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), the party that led the fight for independence from Portugal in the 1960s and 1970s.
The PAIGC was barred from fielding candidates after authorities said it filed papers late.
(Reporting by Alberto Dabo; Writing by Robbie Corey-Boulet; Editing by Alex Richardson and Ros Russell)
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