Democracy
In 1994, 20 years after independence from Portugal, the country's first multiparty legislative and presidential elections were held. An army uprising that triggered the Guinea-Bissau Civil War in 1998, created hundreds of thousands of displaced persons. The president was ousted by a military junta in 7 May 1999. An interim government turned over power in February 2000 when opposition leader Kumba Ialá took office following two rounds of transparent presidential elections. Guinea-Bissau's transition back to democracy has been complicated by a crippled economy devastated by civil war and the military's predilection for governmental meddling.
In September 2003 a bloodless coup took place in which the military, headed by General Veríssimo Correia Seabra, arrested Ialá, because "he was unable to solve the problems". After being delayed several times, legislative elections were held in April 2004.
A mutiny of military factions in October 2004 resulted in the death of General Seabra and others, and caused widespread unrest. The Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Júnior has stated that the mutineers were ex-UN soldiers recently returned from Liberia who were angry about delays in being paid. Talks between these soldiers and the authorities have so far failed to come to an agreement.
In June 2005, presidential elections were held for the first time since the coup that deposed Ialá. Ialá returned as the candidate for the PRS, claiming to be the legitimate president of the country, but the election was won by former president João Bernardo Vieira, deposed in the 1998 coup. Vieira was a candidate for one sect of the PAIGC. Vieira defeated Malam Bacai Sanha in a runoff-election, but Sanha refused initially to concede, claiming that the elections had been fraudulent in two constituencies, including the capital Bissau.
Despite reports that there had been an influx of arms in the weeks leading up to the election and reports of some 'disturbances during campaigning' - including attacks on the presidential palace and the Interior Ministry by as-yet-unidentified gunmen - European monitors labelled the election as "calm and organized".
- 2009 violence
On 2 March 2009, Vieira was assassinated by soldiers. This may be part of another coup attempt. While on 5 June, several major politicians (Baciro Dabo, Faustino Imbali and Helder Proenca) were shot dead, officially to counter a planned coup d'État against the temporary military leadership.
Read more about this topic: History Of Guinea-Bissau
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