Guinea-Bissau military takeover is ‘ceremonial coup’ – Jonathan
“The military doesn’t take over governments, and the sitting president that they overthrew would be allowed to be addressing press conferences and announcing that he has been arrested. Why does this happen? Who is fooling whom?” he asked.
Jonathan also called on ECOWAS and the African Union to ensure the timely announcement of election results, stressing that the military should not interfere with the democratic process.
“Basically, what happened in Guinea-Bissau is quite disturbing to me, who believes in democracy. They have the results because AU and ECOWAS officials were in all the regions when the results were collated. They cannot change those results.
“They should tally all those results and announce them. They cannot force the military out. They must announce and let the world know who won that election. Let the world know who won that election,” he said.
He further recalled his experience overseeing elections in Côte d’Ivoire, emphasising that election outcomes must be respected.
“A similar thing happened in Côte d’Ivoire when I was the Chair of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS. “When we had elections in Côte d’Ivoire in 2010, Laurent Gbagbo was the sitting president. In the first round, Gbagbo got forty-something per cent of the votes, and Alassane Ouattara got thirty-something per cent of the votes.
“And their law, you must get 50 per cent of the votes plus one, at least. Democracy is about the majority. You must get a simple majority to be the president, so they had to go for a second round.
“When they went for the second round, all those other candidates that lost now supported Ouattara, and Ouattara then got more votes than Gbagbo. And Gbagbo said he was not going, that he won the election, and that Ouattara and somebody who had something could not come and defeat him. But that is their law.
“Then all the observers in the international community said Ouattara won the election. And we in ECOWAS said, well, you are our colleague, but you have to go. If the observers, everybody, say Ouattara won the election, Ouattara must be sworn in as the president of Côte d’Ivoire. I stood my ground as the Chair of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS, and Ouattara was sworn in,” he said.
Credit – Punch Newspaper
Video Credit: Symfoni